Review of June 4th, 2011 Mariner Eastern Med (Istanbul) cruise

[wednesday]

This will be long and probably take me a couple of weeks to finish. I am still trying to sort through and edit all of the photos I took. Anyway here goes...

 

 

This was an amazing trip but I will give both the good and the bad. Most of the bad involved getting there and back as well as some of the private tour operators. It would be extremely difficult to find fault with Royal Caribbean on this cruise, it was GREAT!

 

Getting there: We flew Delta from Orlando via JFK to Rome leaving on June 2nd. Our flight from JFK to Rome left something to be desired. We paid $80.00 per seat to upgrade to their new economy comfort, we appreciated the extra legroom and recline but the service on this flight was horrible. The 7pm flight was also delayed about an hour leaving. My biggest problem was that it difficult to get anything to drink which left me dehydrated, I usually buy bottled water to carry on but for some reason I didn’t think to this time. They also decided to do they duty free shopping cart around midnight when we were ready to get some sleep. The low point, was breakfast, we were served a banana and a cup of juice. My husband doesn’t like bananas so no breakfast for him.

 

Here are some photos of the approach to FCO, :D how exciting!

 

Rome airport: (We have cruised out of Barcelona twice and it is much more organized and easier to fly into and sail out of than Rome.) At FCO we were greeted by a huge cluster of hundreds of people at customs, it was like cattle being herded into a chute. Between the amount of time it took to get through customs and the late arrival of our flight we missed our airport shuttle so we were stuck waiting another 2 hours at the airport. We grabbed some lunch, a Panini and a pizza which were really good and afterwards found some seats in a quiet corner where I napped.

[wednesday]

The Hotel: We stayed at the Sheraton Roma, which is not close to any of the sites but offers a shuttle, which worked out fine for what we needed. The price was great, $90.00 per night including most of the taxes on Hotwire. (Rome now charges a new tax of 3 (I think) euros per person per night that we had to pay at the hotel.) The hotel is undergoing renovation in the lobby but the rooms were nice and clean, we had a large bed (queen or king) and the air conditioning worked really well. We cleaned up and took a nice nap while waiting for the rest of our cruise critic group that we were going to go into Rome for dinner with.

 

Our night in Rome: We met up with our group and took the hotel shuttle into Rome, strolled around and visited the Trevi fountain. We had a fabulous dinner at L’Archetto Pizzeria and Spaghetteria, which is a block or two away from the Trevi fountain. I had the “chanel” pasta, which had a lobster sauce and it was so delicious! We walked around a shopped a little while longer, had some gelato and caught a cab back to the hotel.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b107/redchilicat/Eastern%20Mediterranean%20Cruise%202011/eIMG_3075.jpg

 

More photos to follow...

[wednesday]

Photos of the restaurant, I highly recommend it!

 

And more importantly, the gelato!

[wednesday]

Embarkation Day!!!

 

We got up and had breakfast at the hotel bar, they offered a continental breakfast for 5 euros that included a cappuccino, freshly squeezed orange juice and a pastry. It was very good but sadly unavailable when we stayed there after the cruise. It seems the hotel was making changes as they were renovating. The cruise critic group we were with had a private transfer booked to the port so we loaded our luggage and were on our way.

 

Getting through security was relatively quick and painless. Once through security, we had a suite so we were directed to the suite line where there was no wait to check in. Once checked in you have to join the line to go through customs and to turn in your passport to RCI. The ship started boarding early and they were boarding by the time we got in line which I would say was around 11:30. It took about an hour to get through the line, it would have taken longer for the people that had to wait in the regular line to check in. At this port you board like you would in one of the ports of call by walking on from the pier and taking an elevator. I noticed immediately a difference in the staff from our only other RCI cruise, which was aboard the Navigator. The crew on this ship was hands down more friendly and helpful!

 

We made our way to the windjammer, found a table easily because at this point it wasn’t busy. We ate from the carving station and it was really good and the service was friendly.

 

By the time we finished eating, the rooms were ready so we headed to our cabin, 1394, which was a deck 10 aft junior suite. I LOVED that room and hope that I can sail in it again! We met our cabin attendant Erik from Roatan, Honduras who is the best cabin attendant we have ever had. We enjoyed chatting with him over the next 12 days.

 

 

The ship is in really good condition for it’s age and yes there are some things that were looking worn, the carpet in some places was stained and the bathroom in our cabin needed some things repaired but there was nothing to make this cruise anything less than great. Also we had to leave our closet door unlatched because it had a tendency to rattle, again no big deal.

 

Photos of the room to follow...

[wednesday]

The cabin was super quiet, no hallway noise and you could not hear the toilets from the neighboring cabins flush which was a first for us. We did not mind the walk back there, the views made it worthwhile. We also had no real problems with soot, only a tiny amount on the balcony railing on one day. There were also plenty of loungers and we had ice (without asking) everyday. I know the last two things mentioned have been a big issue lately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Panorama of the view

[KansCocoa]

Great review so far!

 

We're doing the Med. & Greek Isles cruise next summer, and I have been looking at the Delta flights...I wondered how their "upgraded" Economy seats were. Do you feel they were worth the extra $$$? Did the seats recline, so you could sleep?

 

Love the aft cabin...we always have to get a suite in the middle of the ship, as my Hubby is sensitive to motion, but I would LOVE an aft cabin sometime!

 

Great photos - keep posting. Can't wait to hear about the private tour operators - I will be anxiously awaiting to read your reviews of them.

[wednesday]

Great review so far!

 

We're doing the Med. & Greek Isles cruise next summer, and I have been looking at the Delta flights...I wondered how their "upgraded" Economy seats were. Do you feel they were worth the extra $$$? Did the seats recline, so you could sleep?

 

Love the aft cabin...we always have to get a suite in the middle of the ship, as my Hubby is sensitive to motion, but I would LOVE an aft cabin sometime!

 

Great photos - keep posting. Can't wait to hear about the private tour operators - I will be anxiously awaiting to read your reviews of them.

 

Thanks :) I will try to post more tomorrow. The delta economy comfort allowed me to sleep a little better but were by no means luxurious. They recline slightly more and I had enough room to cross my legs. I think it was worth it at least on the way.

[logansnonna]

I am really enjoying your review. We are on Mariner Sept. 20th in a hump balcony. Next time we will try for an aft balcony - we had one on Celebrity Infinity through the Panama Canal and the balcony was awesome. We had breakfast on the balcony every day.

[deltatango]

Good review, how much motion do you think you get more than being midships, in % terms, I have never had aft cabin, but I also don't get seasick, maybe would consider this for the larger balcony on some ships for our next cruise

[wednesday]

I don't get motion sickness and the only real difference I noticed was vibration, which we did not mind at all. We had a hump balcony on the Navigator and this just did not feel any different to us(except for the slight vibration from the engines.) We did have relatively calm seas on both trips.

[wednesday]

Informal Meet and Greet: We went to the informal cruise critic meet and greet that was held at the Sky bar and met some really nice people. Just look at the views we enjoyed.

 

 

 

[wednesday]

Breakfast, lunch and dinner in the MDR: The one area that I am probably going to let you down on is the dining, I meant to photograph the menus everyday and just never did. I also didn't photograph the meals and now I just can't remember everything we had. I could kick myself for not documenting all of this. I will say that we never had a bad meal, all of the beef, chicken and seafood was very good. The pork medallions were good but just a little dry. The desserts were not bad and some were very nice like the strawberry pavlova and the chocolate souffle.

 

I also highly recommend lunch and breakfast in the MDR. For breakfast in the MDR they offer a buffet but you can order from the menu and to me it tastes fresher than what they serve on the buffet. I really enjoyed the french toast and the chocolate caramel waffles, the latter were only offered two mornings as the special. I also found the bacon edible unlike the bacon served on the Navigator out of Barcelona which was very strong. Lunch was also pretty good, we ordered off of the menu and then got a small salad from the tutti salad bar. One thing I particularly liked at lunch was the kalamata olive tapenade that was served with the bread, YUM! (I admit that I really love Kalamata olives and nobody else I know does so you may not enjoy the tapenade if you are an olive hater:p)

 

Our wait team Leonardo and Curtis were great and we would always see Leonardo at Breakfast and lunch too where he would go out of his way to see how we were doing. The head waiter for our dining room Orhan was also more visible than any others we have had on any ship. He stopped to talk to us most nights and even when he would see us at breakfast.

 

 

 

 

The Promenade cafe and room service: I have to say that the one time we ordered breakfast from room service it was not very good. The other offerings from room service like the spinach dip and chicken was pretty good.

We would typically stop at the promenade cafe for a snack and found the fruit tarts and cannolis very good and the pizza and sandwiches acceptable. The windjammer has such limited hours and we found that sometimes when coming back onboard from shore the only thing open was the promenade cafe and it would be extremely busy, they really need one more free casual dining venue available for extended hours. I do wish this ship had a 24 hour venue like NCL's jewel class blue Lagoon in which you sit down and order from a menu that offered things like buffalo wings.

 

The Windjammer: As I have mentioned we found their hours too limited so we rarely ate anything there. The few times we did the food and especially the service was good. I do think that the lido buffets on Carnivals newer ships are better in terms of the variety of food offered and for the ability to order freshly prepared dishes like a mongolian wok dish or fresh pasta.

 

I hope I don't sound like I am complaining, we were never hungry, I just wanted to give my opinion on what could make this ship even better. Who knows, maybe RCI will read this :)

 

If you have any questions I will do my best to answer them.