After reading all the reviews, I knew the Odyssey was the van that best met our needs. But I was trying to determine whether the extra $2000 for the navigator was worth it...
We've only had the van for a week and a half, so maybe it's partly the "honeymoon phase", but my wife and I both want to drive the van instead of my other car... which is an Infiniti Q45. I love the Q, but the main reason I like driving the Ody is because of the navigator. I really consider it my "partner" in getting me to places I didn't even know about...
Two examples. One, we were running late to visit a friend who had just gotten home from the hospital. We hadn't gotten a card of gift yet. On the way, we pulled up places-category-shopping-grocery/convenience store and sorted by distance. We found one less than a mile from our (then current location) although we didn't know the area. It saved us a lot of time!
A second example - demonstrates the good and bad, I guess - my wife is pregnant and sometimes get cravings, usually for an ice-cream related "food product". Anyway, for quite awhile she'd been craving something rather specific, a reese-pieces sundae with peanut and fudge sauce from Friendlys. Pulled up Friendly's on the navigator, found one reasonably close by, and received perfect directions... only the Friendly's wasn't there. (Closed down). Had we called the number listed, we would have known. Anyway, the craving was stronger than the disappointment, so we punched up the next closest Friendly's... good news, only a little over 8 miles away!!! Well, sort of... as noted in the manual, that's "as the crow flies"... but somewhat over 12 miles as the Ody drives. It was the most beautiful 12 miles, though, on roads we had never before been on and would NEVER have found on our own... we enjoyed it so much that we later talked about deliberately going to the wrong place, punching up the location again, just to get the same routing! (jk!) Anyway, it was fun and something we would never have been able to do without the navigator.
Final example - I've been taking my kids to school for awhile now, but found out there is a more direct way with fewer lights - courtesy of the Ody/navi again. Then I needed to go that same way because it was even more direct to my wife's ultrasound appointment, but I was "trapped" without the Ody... oh dear, what to do? Yes, that's right, I called my wife who programmed the school into the navigator, then reversed the directions back for me... perfect! We ended up not being late after all!
The bottom line is, having it onboard and using it can fundamentally change the way you think about driving. Now I get irritated when people start to give directions! I'm like, just give me the phone number of the place, we'll find it! Give me the address, we'll find it!
Some people may have a different experience... but for us, it has really been great. We live in a detailed coverage area and most of the places we go to are also in a detailed area, so it helps us a lot. By the way, I noticed that my version of the DVD says version 2.04, rather than 2.03. Don't know what the difference(s) is/are.
We've only had the van for a week and a half, so maybe it's partly the "honeymoon phase", but my wife and I both want to drive the van instead of my other car... which is an Infiniti Q45. I love the Q, but the main reason I like driving the Ody is because of the navigator. I really consider it my "partner" in getting me to places I didn't even know about...
Two examples. One, we were running late to visit a friend who had just gotten home from the hospital. We hadn't gotten a card of gift yet. On the way, we pulled up places-category-shopping-grocery/convenience store and sorted by distance. We found one less than a mile from our (then current location) although we didn't know the area. It saved us a lot of time!
A second example - demonstrates the good and bad, I guess - my wife is pregnant and sometimes get cravings, usually for an ice-cream related "food product". Anyway, for quite awhile she'd been craving something rather specific, a reese-pieces sundae with peanut and fudge sauce from Friendlys. Pulled up Friendly's on the navigator, found one reasonably close by, and received perfect directions... only the Friendly's wasn't there. (Closed down). Had we called the number listed, we would have known. Anyway, the craving was stronger than the disappointment, so we punched up the next closest Friendly's... good news, only a little over 8 miles away!!! Well, sort of... as noted in the manual, that's "as the crow flies"... but somewhat over 12 miles as the Ody drives. It was the most beautiful 12 miles, though, on roads we had never before been on and would NEVER have found on our own... we enjoyed it so much that we later talked about deliberately going to the wrong place, punching up the location again, just to get the same routing! (jk!) Anyway, it was fun and something we would never have been able to do without the navigator.
Final example - I've been taking my kids to school for awhile now, but found out there is a more direct way with fewer lights - courtesy of the Ody/navi again. Then I needed to go that same way because it was even more direct to my wife's ultrasound appointment, but I was "trapped" without the Ody... oh dear, what to do? Yes, that's right, I called my wife who programmed the school into the navigator, then reversed the directions back for me... perfect! We ended up not being late after all!
The bottom line is, having it onboard and using it can fundamentally change the way you think about driving. Now I get irritated when people start to give directions! I'm like, just give me the phone number of the place, we'll find it! Give me the address, we'll find it!
Some people may have a different experience... but for us, it has really been great. We live in a detailed coverage area and most of the places we go to are also in a detailed area, so it helps us a lot. By the way, I noticed that my version of the DVD says version 2.04, rather than 2.03. Don't know what the difference(s) is/are.
