Mariner LIVE Review 4nt Bahamas Jan 6-10th

[johnstoc13]

Hello cruisers,

 

I’ve always wanted to do a cruise review as they offer me sooo much help and inside info when I’m planning my cruise. So, here I sit at Perfect Day at CocoCay on Day 2 to give it a go! 
 

My wife and I, mid 30’s, booked this cruise last minute for a short getaway from the snow and ice in New England. As the weather can be unpredictable we booked a flight out Thursday evening to MCO, and stayed at the Hyatt inside the airport. Super convenient! Grabbed our bags, and straight up the elevator to our room. I had hoped to grab some sushi from the McCoys restaurant but they closed at 11pm. Bummer but no big deal either. It was late and we were asleep right away anyway!

 

After a good nights sleep, we put our luggage tags on and headed down to the food court for a quick breakfast. Next we went to the baggage claim level and ordered our Uber ride to Port Canaveral. 40-45min later we were unloading our bags to the porters and walking into the terminal about 11:30am!

 

Having sailed many times with Royal, we had our mobile apps ready with our Set Sail Passes. We walked inside, no lines, and they scanned our passes and passports. We were given a blue card to notify future check in personnel that we were cleared to get onboard. We continued through the terminal and found the lines of people who hadn’t completed online checkin. It wouldn’t have added a ton of time, but we breezed right by, found the gangway and walked onboard about 11:40am! Unbelievably fast and easy checkin! Amazing job RCCL!

 

Once onboard we did the usual. Explored the promenade, grabbed a couple drinks, checked out the pool decks, found our way onto the helipad for a photo op, and then decided we were hungry! As we booked the Unlimited Dining Package, we headed to Chops Grille for lunch! We each had a wedge salad, a burger, and then shared tater tots and Mac n Chz! Perfect in every way. Burger was juicy and cooked to perfection and the sides were hot and yummy! 
 

 

Tried to upload a video but didn’t work, so ignore the link below. I’ll have photos in future posts too! 

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by johnstoc13

[rostbp]

what night is formal night

[Evilgrin72]

Awesome.  Thanks for doing this - following!

[johnstoc13]

39 minutes ago, rostbp said:

what night is formal night

Formal night is tonight, Day 2!

[rostbp]

Thanks, we are on the 4 night leaving Feb 3rd, so I’ll assume it will be the same, day 2

[island lady]

1 hour ago, rostbp said:

what night is formal night

 

Actually it is not called formal night.  Our cruise compass reads:  

"Today's Dress Code-wear your best.  Say goodbye to Formal Night, and hello to Wear your best."

 

Have heard of other ships doing this, but then again...could be simply due to short 4 night cruise.

 

Indeed beautiful day today weather wise here at Coco Cay. 

[johnstoc13]

After Chops Grille lunch, we headed back up to the Solarium to snag a day bed for a mojito! Bed was surprisingly uncomfortable, but the views made up for it! After our drink, it was 3:15pm and the time came for mister drill. We headed down to deck 4 and lined up. Mostly uneventful and normal ops for this drill. Once finished we headed to Playmakers for a sailaway drink and then headed back to our stateroom to watch from our balcony. Our luggage had arrived as well, so we brought that in and put stuff away after we departed the port.

 

Now that we were all settled in, we decided to head up to the Suite Lounge, since we are in a GS. We had a light snack and met some great people inside! Tao, the concierge, is amazing and took care of us right away! I had emailed him a few days prior to the cruise regarding our specialty dining requests and he made all of our reservations for us! Thank you Tao!

 

Dinner tonight was at Chops Grille! Our favorite, so we made reservations here for the 1st and last night of the cruise. I did read a few reviews that left us worried about the food and service, but that just wasn’t the case for us. Dinner was amazing as it always has been in any Chops on any ship. And our server, Margaret, was outstanding! We requested her again for the last night and look forward to seeing her! Bar server was great too, always around and fast. I had a Manhattan with dinner.

We ordered shrimp cocktail and lobster bisque for appetizers and both had salads. Next came the main course, which was filet mignon. Mashed and baked potatoes for the side.

A delicious meal, followed by apple pie and Key Lime pie for dessert. We preferred the key lime pie, but the apple was good.

 

After dinner we dropped by the Barnacle Pub for some live guitar music. He was great! Then we went to the Schooner Bar to listen to the saxophone quartet. Turned out to be 6, and we enjoyed them for about an hour. Finally, we headed to the welcome aboard comedy show in the Royal Theatre. He was great and will be returning the last night for an adult comedy show. We’re looking forward to it!

 

After the show we went for some pizza on the promenade and enjoyed the 70’s disco party. DW went to bed after and I headed to the casino for some Craps! Played for about an hour, had lots of fun. Dealers were fun and energetic as always. Then I headed back to room for bed. Next day is Perfect Day at CocoCay!

Edited January 7, 2020 by johnstoc13

[kenevenpar]

2 hours ago, johnstoc13 said:

Hello cruisers,

 

After a good nights sleep, we put our luggage tags on and headed down to the food court for a quick breakfast. Next we went to the baggage claim level and ordered our Uber ride to Port Canaveral. 40-45min later we were unloading our bags to the porters and walking into the terminal about 11:30am!

 

 

 

Do you recall how much the Uber was?"

[johnstoc13]

DAY #2 - Perfect Day at CocoCay!

 

 

After a late night, we decided to sleep in a little till about 9am. Got ready for a beach day then headed up to the Windjammer for a quick breakfast. It was as expected in the windjammer, nothing special, but fast and easy. Then we headed down to deck 1 to get off the ship. About 20 yards down the pier, I realized I forgot my cash, so I ran back up real quick to get it. (Turns out we didn’t need it as we didn’t buy anything from the straw market, but hey you never know!)

 

Off the ship for a 2nd time, we made our way to South Beach for our day bed we purchased. It was $199 online and same on the ship I believe. We purchased in advance and thoroughly enjoyed it. We have booked cabanas at Labadee before and we actually enjoyed these beds much more. It was nice to lay down and the beds are very comfortable. You get the bed, 2 loungers, 2 floating mats, and a cooler with 4 waters. Curtains for privacy or shade worked great too! What do you think?!

 

 

This was our view. We had cabana #65.

 

DW enjoyed her Coco Loco as well!

 

So far a great day!!

[johnstoc13]

2 hours ago, island lady said:

 

Actually it is not called formal night.  Our cruise compass reads:  

"Today's Dress Code-wear your best.  Say goodbye to Formal Night, and hello to Wear your best."

 

Have heard of other ships doing this, but then again...could be simply due to short 4 night cruise.

 

Indeed beautiful day today weather wise here at Coco Cay. 

Exactly right, thanks for this!

[johnstoc13]

51 minutes ago, kenevenpar said:

 

Do you recall how much the Uber was?"

$56 - Which was cheaper than any other transportation I could find for 2. More importantly for us though, we didn’t want to be on a schedule. We wanted to wake up at the airport and have breakfast and go when we wanted to. Uber was perfect for this. We usually use Cocoa Beach Shuttle, but didn’t make sense for this trip. I think that was $65ish...can’t remember exactly but their rates are posted online.

[kenevenpar]

That is about what my rental car will be.  I might just cancel and us a Uber.

 

Thanks!

[RazorbackIslandGirl]

Thank you for taking us along!

[John&LaLa]

4 hours ago, kenevenpar said:

That is about what my rental car will be.  I might just cancel and us a Uber.

 

Thanks!

 

A rental car is preferable if you come to the beach a day early

[davekathy]

7 hours ago, island lady said:

 

Actually it is not called formal night.  Our cruise compass reads:  

"Today's Dress Code-wear your best.  Say goodbye to Formal Night, and hello to Wear your best."

 

Have heard of other ships doing this, but then again...could be simply due to short 4 night cruise.

 

Indeed beautiful day today weather wise here at Coco Cay. 

Enjoy your cruise my DS friend. 🍷🍷😎

Edited January 8, 2020 by davekathy

[SteelCityCruiser10]

We have our first visit to coco cay coming on 1-26.  I see there are 2 different beach beds for sale in my planner.  South Beach bed and a general beach bed Listing (no beach specified).  It appears the beach location is the only difference.  Is one better than the other in your opinion?

[johnstoc13]

27 minutes ago, SteelCityCruiser10 said:

We have our first visit to coco cay coming on 1-26.  I see there are 2 different beach beds for sale in my planner.  South Beach bed and a general beach bed Listing (no beach specified).  It appears the beach location is the only difference.  Is one better than the other in your opinion?

I’ll take a look and post pictures of the locations on a map later tonight or early tomorrow. We only visited south beach, and I would highly recommend this area as our visit was great! Can’t speak for the other location.

[johnstoc13]

Don our cabana attendant was such a great guy! Had to share because most aren’t at his level of friendliness and service. He offered food recommendations, helped us navigate the island, helped the bartenders clear empty drinks and other trash, and consistently monitored all of the day beds to ensure nobody was using loungers or beds that didn’t belong to them. Thank you Don!

[johnstoc13]

Lunch at Perfect Day was at the Chill Grill for us. We opted for the taco bar, and we really enjoyed it. Options for meat were steak, pork & chicken.

Rice and beans were available as well as a toppings bar, very good!

 

 

Other options available here were burgers, hotdogs, fries, corn, etc. 

 

 

Plenty of shade around and lots of tables to enjoy your food!

 

 

All in all a great lunch. We also had some mozzarella sticks and funnel cake at the snack shack, courtesy of Don’s recommendation. Don’t miss the funnel cake! Took us back several years!

Edited January 8, 2020 by johnstoc13

[johnstoc13]

It was about 3:45pm and we sadly packed up and headed back to the ship. Anyone going on a Bahamas cruise that gets to enjoy Perfect Day twice is not going to regret that! We showered and got ready for dinner and watched the sunset from our balcony!

 

Dinner was at Izumi tonight so we headed down to deck 4 and made our way in.

 

The place was packed, with just 2 seats left that were saved for us and our reservation. We’ve dined at Izumi many times, and I would say this was one of our better experiences. I had scallops and shrimp and DW had scallops and steak. Feel free to mix and match if you can’t find the combo you like best.

 

 

 

After dinner we stopped by the love & marriage game show. Glad we did, cause it was a riot as always! Next we headed to the Star lounge for Bingo. Wasn’t our day, but I did win $1 on the pull tabs, haha! I’ll take it!

 

 

Following bingo was the “X vs Y” show. Never been to that before, and it was hilarious! Karaoke followed, but we decided to leave for some pizza on the promenade. Afterwards we played a quick game of pool at Playmakers. DW went to bed and I headed to casino to check out the Craps table. Unfortunately, one guy playing (probably drunk) was being quite aggressive and throwing dice. He was mad he didn’t win money when the previous throw’s dice didn’t both hit the wall. Table appeared quite cold as a result so I skipped it altogether and went to bed. More sleep for me and less money for the casino! Win win I’d say!

[island lady]

18 hours ago, johnstoc13 said:

Exactly right, thanks for this!

 

You are most welcome.  This is one of the rare times we left the tux and the cocktail dress behind, but was actually quite comfortable this way and less to pack.  😉 

 

You are doing a great job on your review.  Thanks for taking everyone along!  

 

Beautiful day here in Nassau.  🙂 

Edited January 8, 2020 by island lady

[island lady]

13 hours ago, davekathy said:

Enjoy your cruise my DS friend. 🍷🍷😎

 

Thanks my DS friend...we are!!  Beautiful dry cool and sunny day here in Nassau.  We are starboard side and were lucky to get full ocean view where we are docked on the outside pier.  Looks yummy to sit out there this afternoon with a glass of wine 🍷and watch the boats go by...along with that wonderful ocean breeze!  

 

Headed up to Graycliff hotel for pizza lunch in a bit.  🙂 

[davekathy]

8 minutes ago, island lady said:

 

Thanks my DS friend...we are!!  Beautiful dry cool and sunny day here in Nassau.  We are starboard side and were lucky to get full ocean view where we are docked on the outside pier.  Looks yummy to sit out there this afternoon with a glass of wine 🍷and watch the boats go by...along with that wonderful ocean breeze!  

 

Headed up to Graycliff hotel for pizza lunch in a bit.  🙂 

Great way to start the New Year. 

[fishernrex]

Great review so far!  Thanks for taking us along -  Do you know if Chops is open for lunch on the 3 day trip for embarkation?  

[kruzerci]

Awesome- have a great day, sounds like perfect Bahamas weather.