Mariner Cruise was Great!

[vancom]

We just returned from the June 20 sailing of the Mariner--what a fantastic ship! This is my mini-review--

 

We have sailed on other Royal Caribbean ships but this was our first on this class of ship, and we are not sure that we could ever sail on a smaller one again. The ship was beautiful, clean, and full of kids (when oh when can we sail and avoid quite so many at the same time??). Our dining room waiter Christian was charming but lacked organization, our cabin attendant Phillippe was fine, and we spent way too much time at Boleros drinking mojitos and hanging with Russell and James learning bar tricks. The casino paid me this trip (small but appreciated nevertheless) and I actually climbed the rock wall with alot of help from Karl who worked the line for me! We skated, enjoyed comedian John Pinette, listened to lots of great music, and even came to appreciate the cruise director Becky's high energy level. We ate at Johnny Rockets, and enjoyed Paradise Beach at Cozumel (thanks to posts on this and other boards.) I was pleased at how smooth the ship was--we had what Captain Johnny referred as "rough" seas one night but other than slightly more swaying than usual, it was fine. I needed no anti-nausea medication although my mom did, and she also retired early that night.

 

The only negatives that we could come up with are 1) the elevators are slow and really crowded. We ordinarily don't bother and prefer stairs but my 72 year old dad needs those knees replaced and so we spent lots of time waiting. And waiting...and waiting; 2) the lack of convenient restrooms; 3) unsupervised young teenagers roaming the halls, careening around corners at full speed, shouting, and holding sit-down and chat sessions in the elevators (I am not kidding you!); 4) the dress code issue--apparently many people do indeed think that casual means jeans, shorts, t-shirts, etc., in the dining room. Frankly, I love dressing up, as does my husband, and we were shocked. While I expected it after the posts here, I do wish that the dress code would be enforced. I don't recall our last cruise being quite so casual--

 

All in all, we had a great time! If anyone has any questions, I'll be happy to try and answer them.

 

Vanessa

[mimiandpapa]

It's sad to hear, when RC is lowering its standards...allowing such behavior from the teens and young 'adults' ...soon it will no longer be 'Royal' to cruise. Too bad RC does'nt have the nerve to stop the bad and the ugly.

[Family of 14]

Thank you for the reveiw. We will be on board in three weeks (with our own Mimi and Papa ;) ) who will need the elevators. Just curious if you ever said anything to the kids who were running around and camping out in the elevators?

 

What stateroom did you have? What section of the dining room?

[remedyzrider]

It's sad to hear, when RC is lowering its standards...allowing such behavior from the teens and young 'adults' ...soon it will no longer be 'Royal' to cruise. Too bad RC does'nt have the nerve to stop the bad and the ugly.

I think your being a bit too hard on RC. It would be insanely hard to keep tabs on teens while treating you to "royal" service. So maybe it isn't the "nerve" to stop them but rather the forsight to counter your prospective complaining.... hhhmmm.

 

Good Review! But how did you like the ports?

 

Chris

[vancom]

Several times I spoke to the kids we encountered, and pointed out that what they were doing was either childish (worked on the older kids!) or was affecting others. The responses were always polite but I got the feeling that once I turned and walked away, the behavior resumed. (I have three children aged 6, 10 and 12 so I do have some basis for comment!)

 

We were on Deck 9, cabin 9603 and my parents were right next door, 9605. Convenient for Windjammer and all pool deck activities, but a tough elevator wait for the dinner rush. We had first seating and tended to drift to the photo section on Deck 3, check out what had been pictured the night before, and then over to the dining room. Bottom floor of the dining room, near the window, at a table for 4.

 

Ports we visited: Labadee (wonderful beach, good snorkling at the point, but a long wait for the tender back to ship); Jamaica (used A-Z Planners, and squeezed in Sun Valley Plantation, Firefly and James Bond Beach--we had been to Ocho Rios for vacation before and wanted to see another area of Jamaica); Grand Cayman (Stingray City on Cockatoo Catamaran--RC shore excursion. Again, been there but wanted my mom and dad to experience the stingrays) and Cozumel (Paradise Beach was very nice, and fairly good snorkling out in the deep water.)

 

My husband was reading my post over my shoulder and noted that I really didn't complain to him about the kids until the last day of the cruise. So it wasn't a huge annoyance. I was more disappointed in what I saw as the lack of parental observation/supervision. And it was never the younger kids--those on board always had a parent with them, it seemed, and their behavior was never a problem. With the young teens it was probably a combination of boredom/freedom, last day of cruise-itis, etc!

 

Vanessa

[WeirdEyes]

Vanessa, we were on the May 30th sailing of the Mariner....great cruise, btw. Anyway, we were surprised at the dress at dinner in the dining room also. I saw jeans and t-shirts every night except formal nights. On formal nights, they upgraded to khakis and a polo. Go figure! We had over 800 kids on our cruise and a good many of them were high school graduates on their grad vacation. There was a lot of partying from them, but they were very polite. I did not see any kids taking over the elevators, etc. We always took the stairs though so maybe this is why. I'm glad you had a great cruise. I can't wait to go back!

[joeinwpb]

:) Thanks Vancom for a very good, and objective review. I always avoid cruising during any days when school was out. :cool:

[aruckerbuice]

Hi! I too was on the Mariner with my 84 yr old mother, her friend, sons 11 & 14 and husband. I had the most wonderful time of my life and can't imagine any other ship. We are already planning our next trip. Regarding the teens, I never had a bad experience. Crowded elevators once is a while, but the only kids I saw out of control were the younger ones that were running...as kids like to do. Most of the rowdies were the typical older teens, 18-21 age group, and even those weren't what I would call obnoxious. We were on the 7th floor 7369, 7375 and 7367 and had wonderful rooms. I get seasick easily and never once felt bad! We used room service every day, and after a couple of initial problems that were solved quickly, it was wonderful, but very long waits for anything other than morning "pre-scheduled" service.

 

I too noted that some were allowed into dinner with less than dressy clothes but it really didn't bother me much. We had a wonderful table right by the ocean in the sound of music dining room and twice saw dolphins swimming alongside!

 

Our head waiter had a little bit of trouble with english but she was very eager to please and paid special attention to my 11 year old's picky eating habits. She often brought extra dishes for the table just to sample for variety.

 

We tried to eat at Johnny Rockets several times but always missed it being open or they were having "special" events for children. The hours were sporadic, so if you want to eat there, pay special attention to the hours it is open.

 

The shows were incredible...great quality in all, ice show was fantastic.

 

We had a bad experience with our excursion on Grand Caymen. Don't book the Stingray City and Island Tour with the ship, find someone else or something else to see the island. We had a rude tour guide, very rushed and felt cheated at the expense since we barely made it back to the ship after several delays with the tour and didn't get to see anything for more than 10-12 minutes.

 

I can't describe how wonderful everything else was...even with the few things that I mentioned, they are minor in the overall experience. The ship is beautiful, staff incredible and food very good. We took a night off from the dining room one night and enjoyed very good food in Windjammer, including sushi.

 

Hope this helps. This was our first cruise so I'll be happy to answer anything I can given my small bit of cruise experience.!

 

Smiles.......

[lof10]

I also just returned from the June 20th cruise on the Mariner. What a great time and amazing ship.

 

We had dinner at Chops Grill the first night. The food, service, and dessert were all excellent and well worth the $20 per person.

We had breakfast in the main dining room one morning, and only one of the four people in our group was happy with their meal. Every other morning was spent in the Windjammer...food was much better.

Dinner in the main dining room was good, but the desserts were just OK.

 

The couple we were with had an inside stateroom on deck 7 and it was very nice for an inside room. We had a balcony room on deck 6 (6622). We were very satisfied with room size and location. This was our first balcony room on a cruise...well worth it, and I'm sure we will try to get balcony rooms from now on.

 

Did not take any of the ships excursions. In Jamaica, we used Pete Taylor, a local tour guide. His tour included driving through typical neighborhoods, mountains, a pottery mill, Fern Gulley, and Dunn's River Falls (park admission included) all for $30 per person. For those who wanted to go downtown to shop, or go river rafting, he drove them there for no additional charge. It was a great tour. In Grand Cayman we used Soto's tours to take us to Stingray City and two other snorkeling sites. Cost per person was $24, and well worth it. There were only about 15-20 people on our boat. My only note is that if you have your own snorkeling mask, bring it. I had trouble with mine leaking, and had to stop every few minutes to fix it.

 

While there were a lot of kids on board, I did not encounter the "careening around corners at full speed, shouting, and holding sit-down and chat sessions in the elevators". There were unsupervised kids, but I didn't notice them roaming the halls. As for the dress code issue, I was surprised at they way some of the people (mostly teenage boys) dressed, especially on the formal nights. However, none of these concerns would keep me from taking another cruise on the Mariner.

[yarlenna]

Thank you for the reveiw. We will be on board in three weeks (with our own Mimi and Papa ;) ) who will need the elevators. Just curious if you ever said anything to the kids who were running around and camping out in the elevators?

 

What stateroom did you have? What section of the dining room?

 

I thought that was the parents' job. I do wish that folks traveling with kids would travel WITH their kids! Leaving them alone to "have fun" can often ruin the "fun" of others who also paid to enjoy the cruise.

[dtm09]

I was on the Rhapsody with our family during this same time, and want to specifically address the formal night fress code issue. It may be the same on each ship, although I can't be sure.

 

We went with the specific purpose of not wanting to dress formally. We were content with the fact that we would eat in the Windjammer on those formal nights. On the first night, we were informed by our waiter that the following night was formal night. We told him of our previous decision not to dress up, and that we'd eat in the Windjammer. His comment was that it didn't matter that we didn't have suits/tuxes and/or formal dresses, and that we were more than welcome to show up in our Dockers pants/golf shirts and sundresses.

 

So, it's not necessarily the people who intentionally show up "underdressed". We were encouraged to do so by our waiter.

[tezbear]

We too just returned from the 6/20 Mariner Sailing. I was a little concerned about too much teen rowdiness after reading comments on this board but did not encounter much of it at all. I have 3 teen boys so know how teens can be and from what we saw, most teens were tame. Even the ones who were drinking were not out of control at all. We had a great cruise and would use RCCL again. We have only cruised DCL. I did notice that there were more crew members on RCCL who were rude and not as friendly as the Disney Crew.

 

Most of the noise w/ kids was noticed while on Deck 12 & 13 but not a bother to us at all...they were having fun.

 

All in all, it was a fun week!