TizaR

Thanks for the brief review! I'll be on Mariner later this month.

On the Serenade last year, I tried their "escape room experience" activity - all the puzzles and codes to solve, without the actual escape room part. That was challenging and fun.

I'm looking forward to trying the actual escape room on the Mariner next month!

What's the chance this will be the same schedule and activities on the Mariner next month?

Maybe I missed it but no more entertainment in the theater other than the last night?

 

Thanks!

In the main theater, they had a comedian on night 1, and the production show (RC sings & dancers) on night 2.

I got one of these upsell emails for my upcoming cruise too. It was a good price, so I said I was interested. I researched it here on CC enough to know not to get my hopes up. But never hurts to try I suppose.

Enjoy your first RC cruise!! Yes, Windjammer can be a zoo on boarding day :)

I booked a balcony GTY in April for a cruise in October, and had my room assigned by June.

I initially wrote up a whole response without realizing the thread was that old.

I redeemed points from my Visa for onboard credit a couple months ago for my sailing in October, and they still haven't appeared in my Cruise Planner. I just printed out a copy of the redemption receipt email and will take it to Guest Services when I board if they still don't appear.

"Corkage-gate" HA!

I sailed on the Serenade NE/Canada itinerary last fall and LOVED it! Embarkation was so quick and easy, even though I was only a Gold member with an interior room. It was raining during our Bar Harbor port day, so the tender ride was a little choppy. But I don't recall noticing it aboard the Serenade.

I found Serenade to be a comfortable size, considering the shorter itinerary and the fact that I was traveling solo for that one. I stuck with MDR and Windjammer, and ate great. There are a few specialty restaurants on the ship, if that's more your style.

From what I've read on other threads about this topic - they can charge a corkage fee on the wine you bring aboard, but it doesn't seem to be consistently charged across the fleet. Some crew will, some won't.

Summer pricing, supply and demand, best ship in the 3/4 day market now.

I suspect it does have to do with summer pricing. My friend and I booked a 3 Day cruise on the Mariner for October, and only paid $1000 (after taxes & gratuities) for our balcony room.

This thread has copies of the Cruise Compasses from Mariner's 6/25 sailing: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2649072&highlight=mariner

Those should show the embarkation day activities and time frames.

The back door still works for gifts/amenities:

 

https://secure.royalcaribbean.com/vanity/giftpreferences

"Gift Preferences are not available at this time." :(

In general I like to get there at the earlier end of boarding so I can beat the Windjammer crush (like Bob said), and have more time to walk around exploring the ship and getting familiarized with where things are located.

I pre-plan my ports of call and then "wing it" for everything else onboard.

Part of my nightly routine is taking a glass of wine back to my stateroom, writing in my travel journal about that current day's highlights, and then checking out the next day's Cruise Compass. I'll highlight the "must-dos" in bright yellow, circle/star/mark other possible activities with a colored pen, and then just see how much (or little) I'm in the mood to actually do the next day.

That being said, I haven't been on any of the ships that require advance reservations for the shows. And I don't really do the specialty dining either. So that eliminates some of my need to pre-plan.

I didn't know that was a possibility. If it works, I'll have to keep it in mind for my upcoming cruise

Congrats on your first cruise and thanks for the feedback.

First time I've heard of Air2Sea being less expensive for a domestic flight. I normally don't even check prices on Air2Sea for domestic flights, I guess I should.

I was tracking airfare for a month or two. American's prices made a sudden increase, but A2S hadn't caught up yet, so it was cheaper to go through them. Maybe I just got lucky. ;)

Was this an international flight?

Domestic

I always book through the cruise line (Air2Sea). I've had 2 cruises so far where RC moved the ship's departure to an earlier time, and RC automatically changed my flights so they would still arrive in the departure city in time.

Also, on my upcoming cruise, the price of my American Airlines flight was cheaper going through Air2Sea than it was if I had booked directly through AA's website.

I was also able to log on to AA's website a couple days later and choose my seats.

I have an October cruise and it's $42. So it clearly appears to be cruise specific pricing and possibly based on a variety of factors like days before sailing.

I have an October cruise, and mine is at $47/day.

On my cruise last fall, RC changed the departure of the ship to an earlier time. Since I booked my flights through Air2Sea, they automatically adjusted my flights for me so that I would still make it to the port in time.

So I highly recommend it.

71 days until Mariner!