Just Back from Mariner Western 4/25/04 - Port Reviews

[JeremyAmy]

Amy and I just returned from the 4/18/04 Mariner sailing. We had a blast with our cruise friends Kevin and Leah from New York (we met them on our Adventure of the Seas cruise last June and sailed together this time.) The weather, ship and ports were GREAT!!! Here's a quick recap of what we did in the ports since so much has alrady been said about the ship (note> we are an active 32 and 30 year old couple)
Day 1 Nassau (stopped here instead of CocoCay) - We were excited to return to Nassau. We stayed at the Atlantis 4 years ago and loved it. We took a cab $4/pp to the Atlantis and met a couple around our own age taking pictures (Steven and Jessica from Alabama on their honeymoon.) We paid them $20 to "borrow" their room card in order to get wristbands and towels for the day at Atlantis. We rode the slides, walked the "dig" and hung at the pools until 5:00 and then caught a limo cab ($5/pp back to the ship.) I highly recommend visiting the Atlantis and be creative in finding ways to use the pools (good luck security is tight.)
Day 2: at Sea It was sunny and we had fun by the pool all day (get your pool seats early because the chairs disappear early.)
Day 3: Jamacia - we caught a taxi van outside the ship to Dunn River Falls ($11/pp round trip, be careful another van wanted to charge us $22/pp roundtrip.) The driver dropped us off at 11:00am and came back at 1:00pm to pick us up. The Falls is awesome. We paid $10/pp to get in and someone leaving gave us a lock to use on the lockers (I think they cost $5-$8) - we gave the lock to another couple as we were leaving. We brought water shoes from home ($5 Walmart), which was a smart move since the sell them on the boat for $20 and rent them there for $5-$10. We started at the bottom and went up the falls with another couple without using a guide. A VERY SMART MOVE! The guides took big, long groups and they all held hands and moved really slow; it looked boring. We cruised up the middle and had freedom to go fats or slow, plus we stopped and took pictures everywhere. The Falls are very easy to climb and we had no problem going by ourselves. The best thing to do is start at the bottom behind a "group" and then venture up by yourselves. The Falls are a definte must! The stories of pushy locals in the marketplace are true...just keep walking and say no thanks. We went back to Margaritaville and the shopping plaza to hangout before boarding the shop. Margaritaville was all right, but since Amy and I don't drink alcohol, it wasn't our thing.
Day 4: Grand Caymans - I prebooked online a snorkeling/stingray city tour with Soto Tours for $24/pp. Except for the foul up on local time vs. ship time (we wasted an hour waiting for the bus to pick us up at the pier) Soto's did great. We snorkeled at 2 places and then went to swim with the stingrays at Stingray City. It was a blast and the whole experience was defintely worth the $24/pp. I highly recommed Soto's - just be sure to get the right pick up time figured out beforehand. After the 2.5 hour tour they will drop you off at the pier or beach for the remainder of the day. We didn't have enough time to go to the beach (7 mile beach) since the ship left at 4:00pm, so we went back to town and walked around for a little. I wish we would have had time to see 7 mile beach??? The tenders back and forth went very smoothly.
Day 5: Cozumel. We didn't have any plans for Cozumel, but we lucked out in picking Paradise Beach! All 4 of us grabbed a cab ($12 oneway) to Paradise Beach and we had a wonderful day. Everything, except food and drink, is free at Paradise Beach (free chairs, umbrellas, water floating mats, water trampoline, water rock climbing ice berg, kayaks, hammocks.) The beach is very nice and has spots for about 100-150 people. We were not expecting such a nice beach - I thought it was going to be kinda dumpy, but it wasn't at all. The facilities (food, equipment, showers, bathrooms) were VERY clean and nice. I would say equivalent to a 4 star hotel. We spent the whole day there laying in the sun and playing on the water toys. The only negative was that the beach was a little rocky at the water entrance, but it wasn't too bad. Also, the water wasn't crystal clear like the other islands. We like active beaches and this beach was very active and a lot of fun.
Day 6 at Sea - sunny, sunny, sunny!!!

I highly recommend venturing out by yourself and preplanning what you want to do at each port before you arrive. You'll save a lot of money and have more freedom/time to do more things. If you have any questions about the ports or the ship, let me know. My whole office is rocking back and forth today!!!

Adventure of the Seas 6/1/03
Mariner of the Seas 4/04

[cruiserkcs]

Thanks for the review. Sounds like you had a great time. I'm impressed with how innovative you were at getting wrist bands at Atlantis. I would have never thought of that.

[pudy68]

Thanks Jeremy!
Question - please explain the time difference problem in Gr. Cay because we are doing the same itinerary, and have also planned on using SOTOS, so how can we avoid waiting the extra hour?

Thanks for your help!

[img]http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/countdown.cgi?trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00&prgb=00bfff&cdt=2004;11;7;17;00;00&timezone=GMT-0500[/img]
Mariner, here we come!


AOS 4/21/02 (awesome!)

[lrcruising]

Thanks for a great and positive review. We are on the Mariner on June 6th (Western) too. Did you save the Explorations from the ship that detail shore excursions? If so, I would love to get a copy of them.
Were you supposed to go to CoCo Cay and then it switched to Nassau?

[florida cruising]

Thanks for the great review also. I would also like to know about local time change for the ports. I have booked a couple of excursions with RC.

Ircruising- We are on your 6/6 cruise. This is our first cruise and renewing our vows. We are so excited.

I spoke to RC about the Bahamas and they said they won't know whether it's Nassau or Cococay until a couple of day before, after they check space at ports. Even our cruise docs could be wrong.

Mariner 6/6/04

[JeremyAmy]

Pudy,
Good luck with Soto on the time issue. I had heard of this confusion before I left, so I emailed them specifically about the time pick up (i.e Eastern standard time or their local time which is currently Central); they responded back that the pick up would be at 8:50 am Eastern time. They ended picking us up at 9:30 am Eastern time and then we had to wait on their boat for another half an hour for more people to arrive. They messed up our time, but it worked out ok. The Mariner always stays on Eastern time in every port since it sails out of Florida (Grand Cayman and Cozumel were on Central time.) Ships that sail out of Houston or Central time ports stay on Central time while in ports of call. Have fun!

Adventure of the Seas 6/1/03
Mariner of the Seas 4/04

[JeremyAmy]

ICruising,
Sorry, I didn't save the explorations from the ship; however, I think all the excursions are listed in detail online at RCL's website. The captain announced at 8:00am Monday morning that the surf was too rough to tender at CocoCay that day so we would be sailing on to Nassau. We arrived in Nassau around 11:30am. I would have liked to have seen CocoCay, but we had fun at the Atlantis. We were glad that the weather was nice in Grand Caymans for the tender, since I had read that a lot of times they miss that port due to weather.

Adventure of the Seas 6/1/03
Mariner of the Seas 4/04

[Family of 14]

My email from Nativeway Sports in GC says that our tour starts 8:30 Central and then it says ( this is 9:30 ship time). It also goes on to say that we should check in with them at 8:45 ship time and no later than 9:15. Good correspondence as I would have had a heck of a time trying to figure the times out.

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