LIVE from the Mariner of the Seas Barcelona to Dubai

[Salat13]

Love to reading your review. Can't wait till you board tomorrow :)

 

Greetings from Switzerland :)

[juggler78]

Loving the review, can't wait for the cruise. Enjoy the game, hope you get to see Messi!

[I-Cruiser]

You have a huge following already :) Looking forward to see your pictures of Montserrat and to follow you on your cruise.

[High C's]

Sunday, May 5 – Barcelona, Spain

 

Ok, I have to go now for our visit at Sagrada Familia and then head to Montserrat.

 

I can't wait to hear/see all about this. We are visiting Monserrat and Sagrada Familia for the first time in October.

And I wanted to add to the many others here who have said it, but what a WONDERFUL "live from" to follow along. I love your writing style, and the photos you include just add to our entertainment. Thank you for taking the time to do this for us! :)

[PCWalton1]

What a great report you have started. I know how much work this is to do. Thanks for taking the time to post.

Bill

 

Sent from my Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk 2

[RicardoC]

Looking forward to your live review! Have a great trip.

 

Thank you!

 

Love to reading your review. Can't wait till you board tomorrow :)

 

Greetings from Switzerland :)

 

Thanks for following!

[RicardoC]

Loving the review, can't wait for the cruise. Enjoy the game, hope you get to see Messi!

 

Thanks you did you see he scored twice!? The Game was beautiful

 

You have a huge following already :) Looking forward to see your pictures of Montserrat and to follow you on your cruise.

 

I know right!? Thanks for following along and I'll post it in 5 minutes ;)

[RicardoC]

I can't wait to hear/see all about this. We are visiting Monserrat and Sagrada Familia for the first time in October.

And I wanted to add to the many others here who have said it' date=' but what a WONDERFUL "live from" to follow along. I love your writing style, and the photos you include just add to our entertainment. Thank you for taking the time to do this for us! :)[/size']

 

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Please, feel free to ask anything about these places...I might have forgotten something!

 

What a great report you have started. I know how much work this is to do. Thanks for taking the time to post.

Bill

 

Sent from my Kindle Fire HD using Tapatalk 2

 

Thanks for reading!

[RicardoC]

So…I’m back…and I’m dead!

 

It feels like I was everywhere today (or yesterday…it’s almost 2am in BCN)…well I guess I was! So, back to the morning when we last “talked”; we had A LOT of trouble with ticketmaster when trying to get our tickets to Sagrada Familia. Eventually, after a couple dozen attempts and several errors (page not showing the calendar, not accepting the credit card, etc.) we got our time and had to rush there with our powerful, secret agent movie in Europe-like car (the A1). Our scheduled time to get in was between 9 and 10…we got there at 9:45, 9:50 and line took about 2 minutes (as opposed to the HUGE line for mortals with no internet access)…any lessons? CHECK THE WEBSITES!! Well, I’m not a big fan of planning…I do it but only when necessary so let’s say sometimes I have to learn it the hard way…so please don’t be stubborn like me and check the places’ websites…

 

 

Sagrada Familia…WOW. When we visited it in January 2002 they only had 2 facades “almost” done with eight towers; in July 2008 they had started the main (central) wing or nave, where we could walk through under the construction site. Today, we finally got to see it done (well, almost since there is always some work to be done)…and it was worth it. She is beautiful, she is imponent, she is mysterious, she is exactly 120 years old (since the beginning of her construction) and still under construction (expected to end in 2030); she is just unique. In between our weird, morbid talks about whether we’d see it done or not we figured the three of us were staring at the oldest façade for about 10 minutes…for the third time…in eleven years…just taking everything in once again…that should give you an idea of how powerful this place is. I really hope I get to visit it a couple more times in the next 17 years or so…this way I can say I was one of the construction managers at the Sagrada Familia, right?

 

 

We left the sanctuary and drove straight to Montserrat, located some 30 minutes outside of the city. The ride is easy and pretty nice…we got there with no problems at all…started making our way up and then…stopped. I quickly figured there must be a gate to enter parking and either people take a while to pay or they have a controlled number of cars/people inside. Turns out it is a bit of both and we were there, waiting in line, for “only” one hour and a half. It wasn’t that bad…we were some three thousand meters up with a nice view stuck in a huge line of cars but that gave us the opportunity to explore the Catalan local radios (from classic to pop) and some great laughs…I did wish we had some snacks besides the usual gum and water, though. A good tip is to actually look for the skyride that starts down by the road, not up there (somehow I thought it was up? And then went higher up? No, Rico, no).

 

 

The place is beautiful; there is something really cool about these monasteries up in weird-shaped mountains…we were “just” in Meteora, Greece last July and, though we could see similarities, they are both unique. Please, do not assume “it’s another mountain with a skyride” or something like that, this place should be regarded to as a park because the nature around, the views, even the smell of plants just made the time waiting well worth it. Too bad we couldn’t stay more…I could walk around the several trails all day long…but we had plans for tonight, and my friend Messi was waiting for us so he could score twice and make FC Barcelona win the Spanish Cup. :D

 

 

The game was great, organized, lots of families, and beautiful soccer (and – as opposed to what everyone thinks about my Brazilian roots – I’m not even a soccer fan). Great day, after all, but tomorrow has something bigger, called Mariner of the Seas, waiting for us. As I started my words tonight I’M DEAD, and I have no idea how I managed to type this, so please disregard any nonsense and just imagine it all sounds perfectly sane. :rolleyes:

 

Good night!

[CAT GIRL]

Rico- I am so enjoying your review. As I said before I did this

itinerary a few years ago so I am reliving it again through you.

So thank you for that.

 

That being said, I am also enjoying you. What I mean is that

you have obviously been able to lead a wonderful lifestyle. The

cool thing is that I feel you truly appreciate it. I'm not getting

the sense that you are taking anything for granted and

you are fully taking in everything that you are seeing and

doing. You have been biten by the travel bug. The illness

never goes away. :D

[Sinppu]

but we had plans for tonight, and my friend Messi was waiting for us so he could score twice and make FC Barcelona win the Spanish Cup. :D

 

 

The game was great, organized, lots of families, and beautiful soccer (and – as opposed to what everyone thinks about my Brazilian roots – I’m not even a soccer fan).

Good night!

 

Oh he's your friend too? I saw him in August, isn't he great? ;)

What an awesome itinerary, thanks for doing the review.

[RicardoC]

Rico- I am so enjoying your review. As I said before I did this

itinerary a few years ago so I am reliving it again through you.

So thank you for that.

 

That being said, I am also enjoying you. What I mean is that

you have obviously been able to lead a wonderful lifestyle. The

cool thing is that I feel you truly appreciate it. I'm not getting

the sense that you are taking anything for granted and

you are fully taking in everything that you are seeing and

doing. You have been biten by the travel bug. The illness

never goes away. :D

 

Oh I got biten a couple years ago already...and it only gets "worse" :p

Thanks for coming along!

 

Oh he's your friend too? I saw him in August, isn't he great? ;)

What an awesome itinerary, thanks for doing the review.

 

Oh yeah he's my "bro" hahah

It's amazing how the moment he got in the game (second period) suddenly the whole stadium started flashing pictures...it was almost like a Disney show...or a World Cup Ceremony or something :eek:

Thanks for reading!

[RicardoC]

Monday, May 6 - Barcelona, Spain

Ahh the boarding morning! Is there any better feeling than waking up at boarding day? We are finishing up packing and then soon heading to the ship! I will save some data to send an update/pic(s) from onboard and then convince the father to already get the internet package:rolleyes:...wish me luck! Anyways, I'll talk to you guys in a bit...LIVE from the Mariner!:cool:

[RicardoC]

 

 

[High C's]

Enjoy your first evening on board. It is ALWAYS the best! :)

[KAYTWO]

Really looking forward to following. If you run into our friends on board be sure to say hello - Jeff and Lorraine from Australia - are travelling from Barcelona to Singapore with you and are a load of laughs:D

[RicardoC]

Tuesday, May 7 – At Sea

 

Good morning everyone! I wanted to say this last night but we only got the wifi to work this morning so there you go we are LIVE onboard the Mariner!

 

 

As I type this I have the view above…not bad, huh?:cool: Before I write more (hopefully later this afternoon so you have a nice reading tonight) I just wanted to say everything is great, the ship looks beautiful, the RFS is awesome, and weather is (as you can see above) flawless. Sorry I took so long to update you guys...the life at sea (especially the first day) can be very busy and tiring...:rolleyes::p

 

I’m planning on going around taking pictures with my camera after I go for a run, so I can post some later. Stay tuned!

[7leagueboots]

What an amazing cruise...looking forward to following you.

[LBumb]

awesome job and pix

[drarill]

Rico!!

Loving your review and pictures! Barcelona is so beautiful. Thanks for sharing!

[RicardoC]

I tried posting this last night but internet has been quite slow...I will post "today's" post later on then. Enjoy and thanks for all the comments, I will try to answer them asap!

 

I’m back! It’s been a great, busy day, and I still don’t know how people can think sea days are boring! But let’s do a bit of a flashback to yesterday at around 1pm when we got to the port (remember, the few pics I posted from my phone?).

 

Our location as of last night (May 7) at around 7:30pm.

 

The port was packed! Probably the largest crowd I have ever seen trying to get on a ship at the same time (well…outside of Brazil…which is an unparalleled mess). The security line to get in the building was all the way outside towards the dropping off cars but it was quick so in maybe ten, fifteen minutes we were inside and could head towards the “Suite” check-in, a first for us! Check-in was equally quick, my dad had to go through customs for the EU, and we then had to hand our passports (so they could issue the Egyptian visas). There was another huge line to get onboard but it turned out to go very quickly (they had two “fingers” and each had multiple lines to check sea pass cards)…and then done! The whole process probably took around 40 minutes but I wasn’t very worried about time…we are on vacation, after all!

 

 

 

 

Now the ship really is a beauty. Believe it or not I have always wanted to cruise on the Mariner; she was based in Port Canaveral which was close to home, she looked really nice with the Britto pool area, and then she started going all over like South America (for the repositioning cruises) and California. Turns out we could only make it onboard now…almost ten years after she was completed. She doesn’t look that old, though, I’m actually impressed with her good shape, from the (mostly) modern décor to the very details that imply a well-kept ship. They are having some work done for the Asian season during these three repositioning cruises, but it is nothing major. For example, they are working on a new watch store where the logo one was so they have logo merchandise at the space next to the casino. It’s actually funny because the Promenade looks even more like a town with one of the stores closed and being refurbished (I forgot to take a picture, will try to remember tomorrow). Also, the casino was just re-opened last week (Friday, maybe?) and it looks REALLY Asian; from the predominant red to the various slot machines destined to the new public…very different! It even kind of feels like the casinos in Macau…very beautiful and brand new! My favorite parts so far are (guess?) the main pool, probably one of the nicest ship pools I’ve seen (Solstice, you’re still my favorite), the Ellington Lounge (yes, we are Viking Crown fans), and our suite…but that is a whole new story.

 

Royal Family Suite 9394: WOW. Let me begin saying we are spacious people…who isn’t? But we also prefer to travel more frequently, spend more on “extras”, etc. than to pay exorbitant prices for cabins on a ship. This would change “just a bit” when we found the great prices on this specific cruise and decided to give it a try because of the 10 days at sea…and we are glad we did! It is actually more space than we need; two separated rooms, each with a king sized bed and several closets, two full bathrooms (one with a tub, one with the shower), a walk-in closet in between (to share), a big living room with a small dining table, and a huge balcony facing aft. All of it for three people! It is actually supposed to carry 5-8 people but the waived the minimum requirement because of the repositioning and, most importantly, with no extra fees…we should do these cruises more often…:rolleyes:

 

Is it worth it? Do we like it? What about suite perks? Well…stay tuned and I’ll tell you! I need some rest now…very stressful day, you know…

[timtam2]

I'm really enjoying your posts - i'm boarding Mariner next month in Singapore for a short cruise and you're helping to whet my appetite!

[drarill]

I

 

Royal Family Suite 9394: WOW. Let me begin saying we are spacious people…who isn’t? But we also prefer to travel more frequently, spend more on “extras”, etc. than to pay exorbitant prices for cabins on a ship. This would change “just a bit” when we found the great prices on this specific cruise and decided to give it a try because of the 10 days at sea…and we are glad we did! It is actually more space than we need; two separated rooms, each with a king sized bed and several closets, two full bathrooms (one with a tub, one with the shower), a walk-in closet in between (to share), a big living room with a small dining table, and a huge balcony facing aft. All of it for three people! It is actually supposed to carry 5-8 people but the waived the minimum requirement because of the repositioning and, most importantly, with no extra fees…we should do these cruises more often…:rolleyes:

 

Is it worth it? Do we like it? What about suite perks? Well…stay tuned and I’ll tell you! I need some rest now…very stressful day, you know…

Lucky you!! The RFS is a great room. On our first Baltic cruise we booked an OS but two weeks before our sailing date a RFS was offered on RCCL's website, and we immediately took it!! With a family of four we don't meet the minimum five people requirement for this category!!

Loving your review Rico!!!

[Jax129]

My sister got married on the Mariner 7 years ago & I got to go on her for the day. I was so wowed, the Mariner is the reason I cruise now!! :)

[wolfcathorse]

Rico, who is the captain, hotel director, cruise director, and concierge? Several of us have threads to maintain concerning who is on board in those positions.