Mariner Review 6-19-05 Western Carib

[Longhorn Cruiser]

My family just returned from an incredible trip on the Mariner today. Our family of nine, my parents, my wife and son (16) and my brother his wife and two sons (16, 20) were on the June 19th sailing to the Western Caribbean.

 

We arrived in Orlando on Friday, June 17th and were greeted by our van at the airport. We used Capital One Transportation and Alex picked us up in a 15 passenger van. http://www.capital-transportation.com/

Plenty of room for the nine of us and all of our luggage (the back seat had been removed.) We went straight to our hotel, the Royal Pacific at Universal. Great Hotel. We had already bought passes to universal studios/Islands of Adventure. We bought a two day pass that included three additional days free. We only needed three total. We spent Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday morning at the parks before heading to Port Canaveral. For those that don't know it, if you stay on sight at one of the three Universal hotels, you need only show your room key and you go to the front of the line at all of the rides and shows. Great perk. We did squeeze a terrific meal in at The Palm on Saturday night (one of our favorites.)

 

Alex drove us from our hotel to the pier on Sunday and we arrived at the Mariner around 1:00. Embarkation was very easy and we went right to our cabins. After a lunch at the Windjammer, we went exploring the ship. It is beautiful! So many places to go and things to do.

 

A few words about our cabin. We were in an outside balcony cabin 6246. It was perfect for us and I would highly recommend it. It is conveniently located next to the stairs and elevator on 6 but you don't hear a thing from them. The elevators are tucked away around the corner. I like being near the stairs, it makes easier to maneuver around the ship. We also were only steps away from the Cafe Premenade on 5, a frequent stop on our journeys. Every morning we would make a quick run down there for coffee and pastries or a roll. The Promenade is the hub of the ship and I would want to be close. It is the best way to cross the ship and is where much of the activity is.

 

The best part about our cabin, since it was located right above the Cafe Promenade which is an internet hotspot, I was able to get wireless internet access on my laptop. I bought the 150 minute $50 package and was able to stay in touch with the world from my cabin. To access, you need to go up to the internet center on 8 and register for a password and user name. That's it.

 

One suggestion, whatever cabin you are in, there are only two outlets in the entire cabin. If you have a lot of plugins, bring a power strip. I followed the suggestion on this board to take a pluggin air freshener but was unable to use it because of the location of the outlet. Thankfully we had no need for it.

(For those that have asked, the balcony door stays open by itself - but the air conditioner goes off automatically when the door is open.) The balcony is fairly private with only an opening of about six inches above and below the partitions. The balcony is all glass and gives you an onobstructed view of the ocean.

 

Meals - We really enjoyed our dinners in the dining room having eaten all but one there. Our waiter was Saljit from India and he was fantastic and the dining room is very elegant. We had a table for nine in the Rhapsody in Blue room on three. Saljit asked each of us our names the first night and knew us by first name every night thereafter. I remember eating prime rib the first night, Salmon one night, Turkey one night, and Lobster on friday night. Saljit took great care of my son, bringing him two entrees (usually steak) without us asking. Friday night alone, my son had three lobster tails and one steak. On formal nights, most men wore suits with a smattering of tuxedos here and there.

 

The best meal we had was at Portofinos on Wednesday night. Incredible meals and even better service. I had the chicken parmigiana which was great, but the Filet looked like the best meal. The desserts were incredible. Even if you don't like Tiramasu, order it. Great presentation and even better tasting. I was told that the chocolate cake was the best ever tasted and we had some chocolate experts. We took two extra pieces to go and the kids ate them the next day. (Every cabin has a refrigerator.)

 

Johnny Rockets - what can you say. The best hamburger you can eat (get the grilled onions) and the shakes are great! Splurge and don't worry about the cover charge. (Use your Crown and Anchor coupon and then go back again.) The waiters put on a great show also.

 

Speaking of the kids, the two 16 year olds had a fantastic time. We hardly saw them outside of meals. They spent most of their time in Fuel and the Teen Lounge making lots of friends. Great spots for the teens.

 

Entertainment - We enjoyed the shows. We had three comedians, Don Gavin, Roger Baer and Rick Star. Gavin was the funniest, Baer did good singing impersonations and Star was just OK. The production shows were Front Row and an 80's Show. I enjoyed the second better than the first. We also saw the Drifters who put on a good show ("This Magic Moment, Under the Boardwalk")

The best show by far, is the Ice Show "Under the Big Top". Do not miss this. Skating is great and the costumes are unbelieivable. There are five performances. There is no show in the theater on Wednesday night, while there are two performances of the ice show. Pick up your tickets on Monday morning for the Wednesday night show that doesn't correspond to your dinner time.

 

We also enjoyed Ed the piano player in the Schooner Bar. He plays from 10-1 every night and is great.

 

Weather - Couldn't be better. The only rain we saw was during muster. The water was so calm the entire week, we never felt the ship move. Absolutely no risk of sea sickness.

 

Ports

Labadee - We had fun on the beach. We took a very short walk across the island to Devil's beach which is a little less crowded than the beach you first see that has the trampolines and icebergs. Plenty of shade under the trees.

Ocho Rios - My son, nephew and I did the Canopy Tour. It was fun, but there are only 9 zip lines that last between 5 and 10 seconds each. That is total zip time of 90 seconds and the excursion lasts 4 hours. Most of the time is spent in a car on a very poor road around the island and an even worse road up the mountain. The tour is fun, but I'm not sure it's worth the full four hours for so little zipping.

We finished the tour with a quick stop at Margaritaville. Fun was had by all.

We heard the Buffet song of the same name 7 times during the week. See how many times you hear it.

Caymans - We decided to go to the beach. When you get off the tender, the cabs are waiting and they take you to Sea Grape Beach for $4 a person. Relative to the other beaches, this one is fairly expensive. $10 per chair and another $5 per umbrella. It is however, the prettiest beach in the Caribbean - the water is crystal clear and the sand is perfect. We rented waverunners for $65 per half hour.

Cozumel - We went into town for a little shopping and then had lunch at Senor Frogs (Carlos and Charlies is right next door). Both are great and you will have fun there. After lunch we went to Paradise Beach and it was what we expected after reading the great reviews on this board.

 

That's all I can think of for now. We loved the Mariner and can't wait to get back. Our group has sailed RCL, Princess, Holland America, Radisson, Crystal, and others, and we all enjoyed this cruise for the entire family. Something for everyone.

 

I'll respond to any questions.

Happy Cruising.

[HB Cruiser]

Thanks for taking the time to post your review.

 

We have one question. We were on the Mariner August '03 and were not real happy with the quality of food. Being on six other RCL cruises, we are familiar with the quality of product they usually serve and this cruise was not up to their norm. How was the food? I think your son must have liked it the way you speak of him eating. We are not normally picky but were not happy with it.

 

We are thinking about Mariner for 06 and would like yours, or others opinions.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Tim

[Longhorn Cruiser]

This was our fifth RCL cruise and I felt the food was equal or better than the other four. I warn you that we are not picky and easy to please. I was very happy with the food quality. The dessert choices on some nights could have been better and I remember the quality of the dessert maybe being a little higher before.

 

Make sure that you eat in at least one of the alternative restaurants. We were hesitant but we went to Portofinos on Wednesday night because the time for us was better than what was available at Chops. We loved it. After eating at Portofinos, we almost went to Chops on Friday night. We didn't because we wanted to be in the dining room with our wait staff. They were great.

[bradcruisen6-19]

I had a blast too. I will post my review later

[boingy300]

I had a blast too. I will post my review later

 

We were on the same cruise we had a party of 23. Went to Grill's the first night and we really liked the food, esp. the conch fritters. We waited an hour for a seat, but the kids had fun watching the boat traffic and fish cleaning. We went around 5pm. Service was great. We stayed at the Courtyard for free, but saw just as nice hotels for slt. cheaper price. Sunday's boarding was fast and efficient we were on board by 12:30 (Try the carved roast beef in the Windjammer- great!) and in our rooms by 1:15. We thought both the service AND food quality was better than our 12/03 cruise....but like the OP said- we aren't picky either! We really enjoyed the first night's parade, worth keeping the kids up for! Give your kid the camcorder and get him up close. The performers really like playing w/ the kids and it makes for a fun video!

Labadee was much nicer than our visit in 1996, and we now like it better than Coco Cay. Yes,the selling was aggressive, but when you realize the avg. annual income is $300 you understand why. You get some awesome HUGE seashells there and is worth every penny! We also did waverunner there (my 1st time) and I felt very safe. Great place to learn for a newby (I made sure I was last). It also includes an island tour, so that was a bonus!

Jamaica with Phil Lafayette was suboptimal. My cousin was sick and maybe any further review wouldn't be fair to Phil. I can say he will show you more to Jamaica than the falls, and he's very proud of Jamaica. For those of you who don't care for Jamaica- you may want to give it 1 more try w/ Phil. My absolute favorite part was the river tubing-crystal clear not even a bug insight! I think I'd do it through RCCL next time, as you get a paddle for pushing off the banks and >30 min. to tube. Although later we had issues w/ RCCL's excursions. The falls- if you want to avoid the shops at the top of the falls, bear left and tell the lady at the gate,who tells you that you must exit through the shops, that you want out and you don't want to shop!

Gr. Cayman- we booked a pvt. tour through Capt. Marvins. It cost us around $1000 (28-30 people) but we only got 20 min in Sting ray city and 15 min. snorkel, so, although Capt. is a very skilled craftsman- I would avoid a pvt. excursion, esp. at that price. I would recommend his cheaper 2 hour excursion, though.Keep in mind all excursions have at least a 20 min. drive to, and 20 min. fro- so clarify actual sting ray time- not excursion time!

Cozumel- this is where RCCL dropped the ball. We signed up for $90 CHAKANAAB helmet dive for our intimate group of 8.....only we didn't go to CHAKANAAB and our intimate group of now 12 was disappointed! We saw a starfish-wow.We had planned on spending the day at Chakanaab so we complained and requested $12pp be refunded (which is the entrance fee to Chakanaab). We were basically told "tough, it's not our fault you didn't see any fish<agreed>, you didn't go were we promised, and you only got 1/2 the time promised because we doubled the size of the group"<don't agree!> We plan on pursuing to the corporate level, just on the principle! That was shotty sales and as a loyal RCCL cruiser, I was embarrassed for them! Cheap,cheap,cheap! They need to know,so they can improve!

Now all that being said: We had a great time. Those are just things I wished I had known ahead of time. The overall quality was better. Capt. Johnny was very popular. The kids programs surpassed in our opinion Disney's they really tried to include the kids. The night of the Quest, they offered a Family dance in the disco. Great planning here, as we had a ball dancing and kept kids out of the Quest! There were alot of kids on this ship, and what we observed,most were well behaved. So much to do on the sports deck. The tournaments were a blast to play. Our family even took on the staff in a soccer tournament, we lost of course- but still had fun! I tried rollerblading for the first time. Hit the sports deck at 9am, no lines, no waiting. Always a chair when I needed it- no hog problem for us!

Your as happy as you make up your mind to be!

Oh,my dad also ended up in the infirmary for shortness of breath when his inhaler ran out. They really tried to keep the cost down and gave him choices and valuable info. If you are traveling w/ parents/elderly- please take out insurance! 3 nebulizers and 1 dose of IV aminophylline ran about $300. I'm an ER nurse,so I know they could've done a million$ work up here.Kudos to them, and shame on Dad for telling me he had plenty of meds before we left!

Sorry to momopolize this review- just thought I'd share our experiences as well! Overall had an awesome time!

Karen

"Gumbert Family Cruiser"

[JWMDCM]

Hi All...we just returned from the same sailing 6-19 on the Mariner. We had a great time on this great cruise. Longhorn....we were pratically neighbors as we were down the hall in inside 6231. Sure that we probably passed each other once or twice. We also had main seating dinner in the Rhapsody in Blue dining room table 39. We were in the center by the captains table, but never saw the captain at dinner, because he must have had the later seating during the Captains gala. We thought the food was excellent as well.

 

We stayed the night before at the Doubletree - Cocoa Beach. Had a 5-floor balcony room with a great view of the ocean. We also ate at Grill's that evening around 6:30ish and also had a 45- 1 hour wait to get a table.

 

We arrived at the terminal around 11 AM and was on board before noon. Went straight to the Windjammer for a bite to eat and then on to the cabin.

 

We loved all the shows and made every one of them. The only negative that I had was that there is not a station to get ice tea/ lemonade when the Windjammer is not open as they have had on other ships such as the Vision. Coffee and hot tea was always available in the Cafe Promenade, but no cold drinks.

 

I tried the rock climbing, mini-golf, and ice-skating. All of which were fun. I was also in the Mr Sexy-legs contest, but alas did not win.

 

My daughter (14) loved the program as well and we never saw her much on board except dinner when on the ship.

 

Captain Johnny was great and enjoyed his daily update. The cruise director, James Andrews, was excellent in my opinion.

 

The ship never felt crowded and never seemed like there were 3500+ passengers and 1600 crew members on board. The only day that the pools seemed crowded was the last sea day.

 

And I agree the weather couldn't have been any better. We actually never saw the rain that blew through as we were at our muster station in the Lotus lounge during the rain and it was over when we returned from the drill.

 

Karen - saw you family and their T-shirts. Great idea!. We also did the trick at the falls by exiting to the left, even thought they tried to get us to go through the market. I had the DVD guy follow me to the parking lot still trying to sell my the DVD of the fall climb.

 

Any questions, I will try to answer. All in all it was a great cruise!!!

 

Jeff

[boingy300]

Yeah the DVD at the Falls costs $40! We video taped from the steps (It was my 3rd time to the falls!) Thanks for the T-shirt note. It really helped us locate each other as we boarded and made for fun boarding pictures! I am looking forward to planning my So. Caribbean 2007 cruise!

Karen

"Gumbert Family Cruiser"