In this 4‑night Los Angeles‑to‑Catalina‑Island/Ensenada cruise vlog, Josh and Rachael Fillbrandt walk viewers through the entire embarkation experience on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas. They start with check‑in logistics (vaccination card, 48‑hour negative COVID test) and a quick security process, then showcase the ship’s dining options (buffet, Johnny Rockets, El Loco Fresh) and the spacious but socially‑distanced seating. A detailed room tour of balcony cabin 7280 follows, highlighting storage, in‑room amenities, and the balcony view. They explain the streamlined muster drill, share cost‑saving strategies (bringing two bottles of wine, a 12‑pack of soda, and purchasing a water package instead of buying upgrades or beverage packages), and compare this trip to a previous upgraded cruise. The duo samples ship activities (sports deck, miniature golf, Solarium hot tub) and offers timing advice for early boarding versus later entertainment availability. They also discuss pre‑cruise tips for the Long Beach port (boardwalk walk, Christmas tree lighting, hot chocolate). The video ends with a dinner recap (escargot, pear‑berry cobbler, fried chicken, New York strip) and a call‑to‑action for their “Gluttons” membership, promising behind‑the‑scenes content and early access.
Chapters
Hey everybody, I'm Josh.
And I'm Rachael.
And we are bringing you along with us on the Navigator of the Seas. We are right now in Los Angeles. Cloudy, cloudy Los Angeles.
Cloudy and cold Los Angeles.
Yes, we were ready for like all the nice weather, but instead we're here with hoodies, hooded sweatshirts on.
That's right. We are headed out for a 4-night cruise to Catalina Island, Ensenada, Mexico, and a sea day.
Let's go. Here we go. All right, so we started off today, um, we had a check-in time at 11:30. We were probably through security and checked in by 11:35.
It seemed that fast.
Not exactly that, but probably with less than 20 minutes. You get through security, get your, um, get your bracelet showing that you've had your vaccine. We were on the, on the ship and eating lunch in the buffet.
Well, by I knew, easy. Yeah, so to board the ship, what we needed was vaccination cards and then proof of a negative COVID test within 48 hours of boarding. So that was it.
That was pretty easy. Um, and then they had a— they have a few places open for lunch, um, generally mostly light bites. So like Johnny Rockets is open, but you have to pay extra for that. El Loco Fresh is open up on the pool deck, but it's cold, so we actually wanted to stay inside. At the buffet, I thought it was a really good selection, honestly. It was. We had a wide variety of stuff.
Wide variety, and it was nice because they're still separating the tables out, so you have that room to spread out. Their food was delicious, and of course the staff is just excited for us to be back.
Yeah, the staff is great. Um, after that, we did check out the sports deck as well as the miniature golf course where Josh won.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, checked into our room, which, uh, make sure— pro tip here— for the first time we actually We actually looked up the rules and stuff. You can bring 2 bottles of wine as well as a 12-pack of like a non-alcohol beverage. So we did that as well as bought 2 cases of water. Um, but we're gonna see what we, what we can get into and just have a good time.
That's right, let's go!
All right, this is our room tour. We are room 7280. You use your SeaPass card to get into the room. This is a standard balcony. Um, right as you get in, there is a closet. You can see there's actually a decent amount of shelving built in, and then a few hangers for you. This is definitely smaller than the last room we were in. We were in a Grand Suite last time. We did do the Royal Up program that time. This time we did not do any, any upgrades. We actually got this balcony room from the Casino Royale, um, free offer. So you can see the shower is pretty, pretty tight. Um, it's got the sliding glass or sliding plastic doors. Got your toilet, your sink. A little bit of space down there. I do believe that there is some— yes, okay, storage behind there. Aloha. All right, then you come out to the room. You can see we brought on a 12-pack of Diet Coke. We did pay for the water, or do the water purchase. You got a nice couch there. Here you got a little seating area as well as a couple drawers. We brought on 2 bottles of wine, which you are allowed to do. You've got a nice mirror, good lighting. Uh, we've been watching our safety information. Down here you have a little in-room fridge, which is nice. And then the other piece is you've got your safe right here, decent size. More shelving. Um, and then we have the queen-size bed, so it's 2 twins together. You've got some— actually, I thought this was pretty funny. Uh, over here you've got like reading lights that kind of turn, so that's nice to have. Otherwise, pretty, pretty straightforward. Then over here we've got our balcony. We are still in California at the moment, but here's your balcony. And then Rachael is figuring out what we're gonna do next.
So one of the things you have to do on cruises is the muster drill. And this has been our second time with the very easiest access to it at all. This time we came into our room, um, there was a video, short video to watch on how to do the life jacket, and then we had to hear the emergency horn, walked up to our muster station, he scanned our SeaPass and said, oh, you already watched the video, you're good to go.
Yeah, it was pretty much less than a minute. Yeah, so muster station is much easier than it used to be.
Much improved.
Yes. The big difference that we're gonna go for this trip, um, so on our last cruise we actually did upgrade pretty much everything. We did the Royal Up program to go from a balcony to a grand suite. We did the deluxe beverage package, which is all of it, and we also did the unlimited dining package. This time we did zero of those.
None of those upgrades.
So we're gonna see, um, I guess what the price difference is. In the end because we're still gonna be able to grab drinks and stuff, but the big difference is we did bring 2 bottles of wine. We did bring, um, our own Coke. Yep.
And we did the water package.
So I guess we did do the water package.
And the good news is like drinks, there are drinks included in the Royal— in the cruise package itself. Iced tea, lemonade, um, I would guess it's tap water. Maybe it might be filtered, but it's still just, um, in glasses.
Coffee.
Coffee's included. And I know I heard him say it like for breakfast in the morning, some juices are included.
Okay. All right. So let's see how the price works out in the end. So a cool spot to go to for sail away. You go through the Star Lounge on the right-hand side. You get someone to hold the door for you, and then we go ahead and speed this up. Bzzz bzzz bzzz bzzz bzzz bzzz. There you go.
There you go.
All right, so we ended up going to the hot tub this afternoon, the Solarium. There was like nobody up there, so if you want some nice peaceful time, go to the Solarium. Yes, but I will say I don't know that it pays to get on the boat too early.
I agree with you.
We actually picked the earliest time possible and There's nothing going on on the ship. There's no entertainment going. So unless you're like with a bunch of friends and you're drinking, um, the casino's not open. There's not—
I was gonna say, you can't go to the casino. There's no show.
Yeah. So I think I would lean towards being more in the middle as far as arriving. Um, for us though, we had to, uh, we would have had to check out anyway because we did stay in Long Beach last night. Yeah. Where we did have a really good morning. We actually walked along the beach quite a bit.
There's a boardwalk.
Yeah.
It's beautiful.
We got some good breakfast at the breakfast bar. So I definitely would recommend staying over there. Tough thing for us is we had some issues with our flight getting here.
Yeah.
So we didn't get here till like 10:30, 11 o'clock at night. But—
That's what I was gonna say. Be a tourist in the city where you're porting from.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's there for a reason. So be, be a tourist there for a little bit before you get on the ship.
Yeah, I think if we did it again, we would still try to get in the day before, but weather, you know, it happens. So tonight we're gonna go try to see the Christmas trees getting lit.
Christmas tree lighting and, uh, Christmas carols. I believe they're doing Christmas carols.
We'll see. Let's hope—
15 minutes, Josh.
Yeah, let's hope that they do the Christmas tree first and then we can go see what we're doing for dinner.
All right, let's go.
It appears that because of the weather, the caroling got canceled, but we did get free hot chocolates.
Score!
All right, so we did go down to dinner in the main dining room, main dining room, which the main dining room is beautiful.
Oh, it's so pretty. That stairway, it's so pretty, so pretty.
Um, so we actually tried quite a few dishes. We'll put those all up on here for you. What would you say is the best dish you had?
The escargot.
I agree. The escargot was so good. It was on a cruise ship where I first had escargot, and I always want it because this is the classic way. And the good thing is I saw that it's on the menu like every night now, whereas it used to only be on the formal nights. Yeah, so that's cool. Um, best dessert I thought was the— it was like a pear and a berry cobbler.
Cobbler. Yeah, it was really good. What I did like too tonight is we ordered a bunch of stuff that is on the menu every night, so it's kind of cool that we got that out of the way and now we can try other stuff. Yep.
Um, I thought the fried chicken was— it was good. Yeah, New York strip was a little disappointing, and the polenta was—
We just don't like polenta.
Nope. I thought it ate like a side dish.
Yep.
But we then gambled a little bit and now we're tired.
First day gambling, which means not so hot.
No.
Nope.
That's right. So we're gonna probably head in. Uh, tomorrow is Catalina, so we're supposed to be there by 8.
Yeah, we'll see you tomorrow. Hi, we would like to thank you guys so much for all your support and watching our channel and supporting our videos.
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