LIVE FROM THE MARINER 11/12 (precruise)

[Pootersmom]

This portion of our cruise review will be the pre-cruise review of Port Canaveral, Cocoa Beach and surrounding area.

 

We left Asheville, North Carolina at about 11:00 Thursday morning. We drove straight through, stopping in Columbia, SC for lunch at Fuddruckers. Biggest doggone hot dog I have ever seen in my LIFE! Pretty good. Quite a few spots along the way where there was road work in progress, but we had no delays at all.

 

We had reserved a room for two nights (Friday and Saturday) at the Radisson near Port Canaveral and I made a quick call before we got off of I-95 to see if they could accommodate us for the additional night. There was no problem and we arrived at the Radisson right at 8:00.

 

We had originally planned to take advantage of the park-n-cruise deal, which I think saves you about $40.00 on the parking if you are staying just one night at the Radisson, as the Port charges $12.00 a day (I believe). The rate for the room if you don’t opt for the park-n-cruise is about $50.00 a night less. HOWEVER, the Radisson wanted to charge the $50.00 per night extra EVERY night of our stay, which would have ended up costing us $150.00 to park at the Radisson. So we instead went for something called the “Hot Deals”, which does not include the parking and is $50.00 less.

 

The room was comfortable, King size bed with a sleep number bed that got stuck on the lowest setting on my side of the bed and was like sleeping in a hammock (it looked it when I woke up this morning too), but I was very tired after having worked half a day and then I was in the drivers seat all the way down…..and I gotta confess….I didn’t notice. However, we played with the sleep number bed this morning and right now, my side of the bed looks inflated to a respectable level and I am looking forward to an even better night's sleep tonight.

 

We had the breakfast buffet this morning (total price for two was $24.00). They have a waffle and omelet station, strawberries, grapes, honeydew melon, biscuits and gravy, home fried potatoes (they were very good), bacon, French toast. The best part was the potatoes. They were really good, so if you try the buffet, try the potatoes. We are going to try something different for breakfast tomorrow and I will report back on that.

 

Next stop was Ron Jon’s Surf Shop. We needed water shoes for our excursions, sneakers for DH, sunscreen. We got the water shoes (I think they’re sexy), Ron Jon’s baseball caps, sneakers, sun screen, flip flops, sunglasses. Ron Jon’s is a neat store. I want to go back and get the bath mat that looks like a small surf board. When you go into Ron Jon’s, or to Canaveral Pier, you are going to receive a hard sell on the Ron Jon’s Caribe Resort. It looks very interesting and they will offer you a free night if you will subject yourself to a 90 minute Time Share tour. I gotta tell ya…..the pictures they showed of the pool area (in particular) and the rooms really made me want to see what the resort was like. But the sales pitch (even just to take the tour) is pretty high pressure, so beware if you sign up.

 

From there we went and had lunch at Coconuts right off the ocean. I think this was the best part of the day. We sat out on their patio and listened to music while eating fish-n-chips for me, fried shrimp for DH. Food was good, service was excellent and the weather was the best you can ever hope for in Florida. In the mid 70’s, sunny, no humidity to speak of.

 

After that we took a drive over to Merritt Island, then into Cocoa and Rockledge. I grew up in Cocoa and it was fun to just retrace all my steps but suprising to see my playground gone, replaced by commercial or residential buildings. When I was a kid living here, times were safer, and my “playground” stretched roughly 15 miles in any direction. It is certainly a different place now than what it was when I was a child.

 

We came back and took a bunch of pictures of the Radisson pool area, which is quite pretty with little alcoves and Koi ponds, little waterfalls and the pool itself is very large with live music poolside and a pool bar.

 

We ended our day by going to dinner at a placed called Florida’s Seafood Grill located right near the Banana River Bridge just as you are leaving Cocoa Beach on 520 . It was just so-so. Nice salt water aquarium stretching the length of the restaurant, dividing it in half. Service was good….food was just a little disappointing.

 

Now I am back in our room at the Radisson. The University of Central Florida is having a “gathering” here and I don’t think I have ever seen so many pretty girls in bikinis in one place. So if any of you young men out there are wondering where you might like to go to school…..apparently The University of Central Florida might be a place you wanna check out. Apparently they are having a great time as I can hear the festivities right outside my room!:eek:

 

I think there is a party outside at the pool that is calling my name.......will be back tomorrow with more.

 

Okay….this will be my first post of my Live From the Mariner cruise review. Lets see if this is gonna fly………….

 

dang it....I can't get the pictures to show ....phooey.. I'll keep trying.

[kruz]

Teri..great job!! Glad you have arrived safe and sound,. If yu get chance the

Greek Rest.right next door is a wonderful spot for breakfast. I am sure we will be there Sunday am!

 

PS- Tell Shane our plans changed again and we won't arrive till about 9 am Sunday!

[kruz]

Not sure but on another website you have to first download to photobuckets or webshots.com and then copy and paste the URL..hope this helps

karen

[whitsmom]

Hey Teri & Kevin: Glad you guys made it okay. I'm looking forward to your next installment. See you Sunday.

 

Judy & Burnie

[Pootersmom]

Day 2 of the pre-cruise...tomorrow we board the Mariner.

 

Had breakfast next door at Zachary's. Service was excellent, food was very good, price was excellent. Drove down to the port and took some pictures of the Carnival Glory and Elation and one a Disney ship. I have been having GREAT difficulty posting on CruiseCritic, every step of the way having to type in my user name and password before I can complete the next step (sometimes three and four times before it will load the next page). I have been unable to post pictures at all, only the file names that have to be opened. I am going to try and get help from one of the cruise critic members we are meeting for dinner tonight and make sure it is not just "me".

 

Things are a little quieter at the Radisson today....I suspect a lot of last nights revelers are sleeping in today.

 

We drove to Titusville.....seems like a lot of nice commericial buildings are standing empty along US-1.

 

We meet at Fishlips tonight at 6:00 to meet some of the members on our Roll Call....hopefully I'll have some pictures to post afte that.

[Pootersmom]

Okay....I think I may have licked the photo problem (switched from webshots to photobucket). Some shots at the Radisson.

 

 

 

 

 

[Pootersmom]

Our room at the Radisson

 

 

 

 

[Pootersmom]

And finally, we tooks some pictures of the Carnival Glory, Elation and a Disney ship at the port on the way back to the room this afternoon. DH was pretty impressed with the size of the ships........wait till he sees the Mariner....:p

 

 

 

[kruz]

Cool pics! Glad you figured out the bugs! See ya Maniana!!! (Tomorrow!)

[bkozer1]

We will be on the MARINER ON 11/26/06. two weeks.

Please let me know how the food at fishlips IS, thank you..

[Pootersmom]

bkozer1, Just came from Fishlips and the food was delicious and the service friendly and efficient. We met four other people from our roll call group. When we got there, we told the hostess we were meeting other people from the Mariner and she said that another couple had gone upstairs to the bar area earlier. So we went upstairs to try to find them but could never locate them. I even approached several couples and asked, but we could not locate them. So we came back downstairs and were seated and one couple and a mother/daughter joined us and we had a lot of laughs. We got to watch the Elation leave as well as one of the casino ships. Below is a picture of our roll call fellow passengers. We were VERY surprised that we could not find Jason and Shane (GaDawg), since they were the ones that originated the idea of this pre-cruise get together to begin with. That's okay....tomorrow I'll locate Shane (he's the one in the plaid shorts) and give him "what for". Again, the food was very good and a good value. Everyone at our table really enjoyed what they ordered (we all even had dessert!):D

 

[Pootersmom]

Cool pics! Glad you figured out the bugs! See ya Maniana!!! (Tomorrow!)

 

Karen, Wish you could have been here tonight. But we'll meet you by the pool bar by 3:00 and/or the helipad at sail away. Hope we sleep tonight!

[whitsmom]

Glad you had a pleasant day and a great dinner. See you call tomorrow.

We have to be at the airport at 5:30 a.m. so it's off the bed soon.

[PhoenixCruiser]

We hope you have a fantastic time on the Mariner, and look forward to reading your updates :D

 

###

[burnsie]

Can't wait to read your posts! We will be on the mariner also on the 26th. My son and husband are looking forward to the Pub and sitting around drinking ale(?).

 

Enjoy your cruise!

burnsie

[powelweb]

I'm also sailing on 11/26, and will be glued to my pc looking for your posts.

 

Have a wonderful trip.

 

If you could note who your captain and CD are, and if they will be on in 2 weeks, I would be grateful.

 

Happy sailing,

Wendy

[jules815]

I hope you all enjoy your cruise on the Mariner! I'll be back on her in June. :)

[bkozer1]

Thank you pootersmom

We are trying to get a group togather to eat at fishlips,so we are happy with all the info.

KEEP IT COMING. :)

[Pootersmom]

Hello Again, Reporting to you LIVE from the Solarium aboard the Mariner of the seas. I prepared my review last night with the intention of cutting and pasting this morning once we found a hot spot for the wireless. The Solarium pool area is a great place for this and we will be taking pictures of that today to post tomorrow.

 

We are having a great time and are finally beginning to relax. So here is the review for Embarkation day Sunday 11/12/06 (grrrr, once again I am having difficulty uploading pictures. None of the attachment buttons are responding. Soooo....pictures will have to wait till later. Wifi, by the way, is 50 cents per minute. So I'll figure it out....go by the package that will give me 150 minutes for 50 bucks and try again.

 

11/12/06

Well we are here, and the first day is almost over.

 

Embarkation itself was pretty smooth. Filled out the Bahamas immigration form, a little health questionnaire, gave them our credit card information to get our Sea Pass and we were on the ship. Because we were in a suite, we were placed in a line that was just a little shorter than the other lines, but they seemed to go pretty quick as well.

 

Once we were on board, it was a little bit more of a zoo. Everything I have read on Cruise Critic says get on board early, go to the Windjammer and have lunch, go book your spa appointments and your reservations for Portifino’s and Chops, quick before they are all gone. Well…..our experience was that nothing was open to do any of those things, so we ended up wandering around with all the other passengers just looking for a place to wait until things did start up, which was around 12:30 to 12:45. They finally allow you to go to your rooms at 1:00. DH didn’t listen to me for the last six months and walked on board with about 3 cigarettes to his name and the duty free shop does not open until around 6:00 p.m. when we are in international waters. Fortunately, our luggage arrived at about 4:00. We did grab a little lunch at about 3:00 and explored some of the ship.

 

Muster was quick and painless promptly at 4:15. We met our cabin attendant Sandra and she seems very nice and this evening all the things I requested were taken care of (egg crate mattress topper, ashtray for DH, clean the mini fridge out so we could use for diet Pepsi for DH).

 

We met several of our cruise critic group at the Pool bar at about 2:30, easy to locate thanks to Shane’s plaid pants. Had my first complimentary “shooter” in about 20 years….it burned all the way down! LOL

 

Dinner was casual tonight and we had early seating. The food was good and the company even better. We have been seated with three other couples, but only two showed up tonight. The two we dined with are also from NC and both couples have double digits cruises under their belts……but lo and behold….they had never heard of Cruise Critic!. Our waiter Melecio from the Philippines and his assistant waiter Armando from Nicaragua were both excellent and very friendly. Armando asked if we liked the coffee and I said it was very good and asked him if it was freshly brewed from beans or coffee syrup (a question I already knew the answer to thanks to Cruise Critic). He very diplomatically dodged the question by saying it was…..”roasted”……we all got a laugh out of that one. It was perfectly fine, however, in my opinion.

 

After dinner, DH pooped out, not having walked that much in years, I don’t think. So I went to the Welcome Aboard show and thoroughly enjoyed the juggler Kristian Kristof, who was really good. The comedian, George Kanter, was pretty funny and he is supposed to have an adult stand-up routine around midnight tomorrow and I am looking forward to seeing that. Becky is our cruise director and I have read great things about her on Cruise Critic, but her portion of the show was over by the time I got there, so I only saw her announce the other performers. It was standing room only tonight, and I had arrived late so I stood up in the back and could feel some motion as the ship has been moving along at a speed of exactly 15.9 kts. It was just a little cool and windy when we left Port Canaveral, but it feels like it might be warming up a bit even though the sun has gone down.

 

There is a parade in the Royal Promenade at 10:45 and DH is trying to decide if he wants to go or not, but either way I am going as I have heard they are pretty impressive events and I would like to get some pictures to include with this review. After that…..I’m probably off to bed myself. Tomorrow is Coco Cay and at this point we are not planning to go ashore, but instead hang out on the ship when it is less crowded. The first formal night is tomorrow night.

[SachemSailor]

I am a novice Cruiser looking to go on my first trip soon.. I was wondering just how "Formal" the formal events are??

 

Thanks!

[amybear912]

We will be on Mariner in February so I am really enjoying your up-to-the-minute review... makes me so excited about our cruise...

 

I loved your pics from the Radisson... we stayed there last year before sailing on Sovereign... this year we will be staying with friends that we met on last year's cruise who are sailing Mariner with us and just got off her in September...

 

I am so psyched about the Solarium... it's the reason we are sailing Mariner in the first place...

 

Let me know whether or not you get lobster tail... it wasn't offered once on Sovereign and I was a bit disappointed.

[winncove]

Yes Amy..we'll have lobster tails on fromal nite[2nd I think]! Glad to see you're joining us. Signed up for M&M yet!

 

SachemSailor Don't fret about Formal nite. You'll see really formal, incl. tux but also Sunday dress & men's suits. [More suits than tux in our experience.] Just whatever you have & are comfortable in. We, like most, became hooked on cruising & keep adding more dressy things to the closet w/each cruise, but mostly things I can wear to our few dressy things @ home. I can only remember seeing long gowns on young girls who probably have worn them to proms & college parties. [Do I need my flame proof suit on here?]

 

Del

[amybear912]

winn... no, we haven't signed up for M&M yet but we planning too... any truth to the rumor that it will be a Superbowl party? It's hard enough getting the hubby to cruise on Superbowl Sunday... especially if he thinks he might miss the big game... He's convinced that our Indy Colts are going this year... but then again, he said that last year, and the year before, and the year before... come to think of it, he 's been saying that for the last 10 years.

 

Oh, will they ever just get there and bring our city it's much deserved championship?

 

I keep booking Superbowl cruises hoping that a cruise will lessen the disappointment of not seeing the Colts in the big game... worked last year...

 

We'll sign up for M&M, along with the other couple we are travelling with...

 

*Homer Simpson voice* - Mmmm, lobster :D

[Fitnessmaniac]

We sailed Mariner Oct 26 thru Nov 5th! We had a great time! Halloween night was awesome!!! Loved it!!

We even were asked to dine with the Captain on Friday formal night!! What a treat!!!

The only thing I had a problem with was the winds! The last day (Saturday the 4th of Nov) YIKES! The winds got to 50mph!! Our cabin was aft. (very back Jr Suite) We stayed in bed all day. I got my first sea sickness. YUK! (this was our 13th cruise and our 10th with RCCL)

We loved Mariner! WE REALLY LOVE CAPTAIN JOHNNY!!! He's a hoot!! loved him! loved him!!!

Last year we stayed at the Raddisson before boarding the Soverign. This time we stayed at Hilton Disney World. Both are VERY nice. :)

Raddison has a much nicer pool area. :) Enjoy your cruise!!

[Pootersmom]

Okay....right now I am in the Cafe Promenade (another wireless hotspot) where they offer coffee and pastries and sandwiches (no charge). Tonight is the first formal night and they are serving Lobster, among other things, and CHERRIES JUBILEE (an all time favorite of mine prepared tableside)for dessert. There are two formal nights and as has been stated here you will see long formals on the women down to nice dresses and pantsuits. Tux's and suits for men. I am 47 years old and had a long formal made for this cruise, although I plan to wear that the second formal night (if I still fit in it, that is).

 

The current captain is Captain Johnny and my understanding is this is his last voyage before a break (but don't quote me on that). The Cruise Director is Becky.

 

Okay....lets see if the pictures will fly this time. Sunset yesterday, promenade, and one of our stateroom.