LIVE LIVE LIVE from the MARINER with MERION MOM for 53 DAYS!!!

[Merion_Mom]

Captain Johnny spoke from the Royal Promenade bridge tonight at the Captain's Reception.

 

He gave us the following figures:

 

72 "delayed" passengers will be joining us in Barbados. (the visa-less ones)

 

There are 1,726 passengers on board. (I assume that he means paying passengers, because many of the staff were allowed to bring family because of all of the empty cabins)

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Less exact number: About 1200 B2B2B'ers.

 

According to various crew members, people are just getting smaller assignments - they are dividing the workload into smaller parts. Fewer cabins, fewer diners, etc.

 

They will take the opportunity to "deep clean" the empty cabins.

 

There is no waiting for elevators. ;)

 

The Royal Promenade STILL felt crowded during the reception.

 

The Royal Divas of the Deep had our picture taken with Captain Johnny.

 

CocoCay was BEAUTIFUL, as always. And pretty much deserted. I'm guessing that less than 2/3 of the 1700 even took a tender over to the island.

 

Few did more than eat lunch and return to the ship. I saw no one snorkeling, kayaking or getting drinks at the bar. This was a big money-losing day for RC.

 

WE had a great time, of course. WE (not I, 'cause I don't like 'em) got CocoLocos at the bar.

 

Muster was a PITA. Many many stragglers, causing delays.

 

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - where are all my Monarch May 2007 buddies?

 

Remember the tender break-down in Catalina, and how I tried to rally everyone's spirits?

 

Well, at the Muster, I started "46 bottles of beer on the wall, 46 bottles of beer..............." Cindy, Jeannine and Betty and I sang and sang and sang. NO ONE JOINED IN. We got all the way down to "7 bottles of beer on the wall, 7 bottles of beer......" before the Drill actually commenced.

 

I abhor rude, inconsiderate people like those stragglers!!!!

 

Met an adorable drummer, though - he was one of our muster station crew. Screamed and cheered for him at the show tonight - we are sure that he was utterly befuddled as to who his Fan Club was!!!!

[ladylawyer]

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - where are all my Monarch May 2007 buddies?

 

Remember the tender break-down in Catalina, and how I tried to rally everyone's spirits?

 

Well, at the Muster, I started "46 bottles of beer on the wall, 46 bottles of beer..............." Cindy, Jeannine and Betty and I sang and sang and sang. NO ONE JOINED IN. We got all the way down to "7 bottles of beer on the wall, 7 bottles of beer......" before the Drill actually commenced.

 

I'm here ... :D

 

So, Carol, how many bottles did you get down to before the teeny weeny tender took us back to the Monarch?

[Merion_Mom]

Which brings us to the show.

 

Tonight, the Nelson brothers repeated the show which I saw last week on the New Year's Eve cruise.

 

Since we are on main seating, we got the first Nelson show at 9 P.M. It was fantastic. We could only get seats in the about the 8th row, but we sang and danced and clapped and whooped anyway. Not a very active or excited crowd. Tough on them. :p

 

We enjoyed it so much that we went back for the second show, scheduled for 10:45.

 

This time we managed to sit in the second row.

 

This audience was more lively, but we still outdid them by singing, dancing, whooping, cheering, etc. We even whooped and screamed for Andrew, the drummer, as I mentioned. ;)

 

After the second show, we went to the Wig and Gavel, where we sang for another hour or so with Mark b. Good times. ;)

 

Then we wandered into the casino, to see just how deserted it was. It was deserted. :rolleyes:

 

Then I discovered that I had left my SeaPass in a slot machine earlier, but the casino cashier had it. (phew!) Then we chatted for a while with Dave, a blackjack dealer from England. He doesn't mind so much that it is dead. Yes, he is losing income, but everyone is getting more downtime, and they are all really looking forward to visiting the amazing ports.

 

Then Pat wandered by, and we all talked about how much we LOVED the Nelsons. She said, "Oh, they are sitting and eating in the back corner of the Café Promenade right now."

 

Before she had finished pronouncing "Promenade", I was sprinting up the stairs.

 

We approached their table, and they couldn't have been lovelier!

 

We stood there and chatted with Matthew and Gunnar, and Tracy, and Neil.

 

Yes, they remembered me, and my daughter, from last week. Yes, they had seen us and heard us at both shows. After quite a few minutes of conversation, during which I suggested to Gunnar that he lose the jacket and do the show in just his t-shirt, as he had done last week ;), Gunnar said, "Hey, have you guys seen "Dumb and Dumber"? It's the greatest movie to just have some great belly laughs. The movie guy said that if no one shows up for the 1 a.m. screening of The Bucket List, he'll put on Dumb and Dumber for us."

 

So we all went down to the Deck 2 screening room. Unfortunately, ONE LONE GUY was sitting there, watching The Bucket List.

 

I invited them all to come up to our RFS to watch it, but Matthew or Gunnar said that they really wanted to watch it on a big screen.

 

So we stood around on Deck 2, chatting, for another 20 minutes or so. Jeannine honed in on Gunnar, I was talking with Tracy and Remy (her daughter), and Woody was talking with Matthew, and everyone was talking with everyone. Then Woody left, and Matthew left, and Tracy & Remy left..................and Cindy and Jeannine and I took pictures of each other with Gunnar!!!!! I can't wait to upload the picture.....Gunnar and I are hugging!!!!!!! :D

 

What a night!

[Merion_Mom]

Meanwhile, earlier in the evening, Jeannine's SeaPass card had "gone astray", and someone had used it to charge two beers at a bar! It took her a while to get things straightened out, but there was apparently one strange result.

 

Of course, she had to get a new SeaPass. Now HERS isn't gold with SUITE, either.

 

We all went up to the stateroom together - Cindy's card didn't work in the door. MY card didn't work in the door. Only Jeannine's card worked.

 

So I went down to Guest Relations (remember, we are on the aft, and we had just trudged from Deck 2 all the way forward to Deck 9 all the way aft) and told Raffael what had happened.

 

He tested all three cards in two different card readers, and said that they were ALL fine! He said that they were NOT de-magnetized. He said that the problem could be the battery in the card reader in the door. Unfortunately, maintenance staff had already gone to bed.

 

I went back up to the room to try the cards again. They still didn't work. So Cindy and I went back downstairs, and had new cards made.

 

Now all three of us have plain white cards. At least I got Raffi to look for and find the blue sticker that says "Diamond Plus Member", so that's on my card now.

 

But that's a lot of card trouble for so early in the cruise.

 

And here I am, staying up late to post for all of you. :)

 

But we have two sea days now. Tomorrow is the Meet 'n' Mingle.

 

:)

[Gator0178]

Thanks for the updates!:D

[lucky99]

Meanwhile, earlier in the evening, Jeannine's SeaPass card had "gone astray", and someone had used it to charge two beers at a bar! It took her a while to get things straightened out, but there was apparently one strange result.

 

Of course, she had to get a new SeaPass. Now HERS isn't gold with SUITE, either.

 

We all went up to the stateroom together - Cindy's card didn't work in the door. MY card didn't work in the door. Only Jeannine's card worked.

 

So I went down to Guest Relations (remember, we are on the aft, and we had just trudged from Deck 2 all the way forward to Deck 9 all the way aft) and told Raffael what had happened.

 

He tested all three cards in two different card readers, and said that they were ALL fine! He said that they were NOT de-magnetized. He said that the problem could be the battery in the card reader in the door. Unfortunately, maintenance staff had already gone to bed.

 

I went back up to the room to try the cards again. They still didn't work. So Cindy and I went back downstairs, and had new cards made.

 

Now all three of us have plain white cards. At least I got Raffi to look for and find the blue sticker that says "Diamond Plus Member", so that's on my card now.

 

But that's a lot of card trouble for so early in the cruise.

 

And here I am, staying up late to post for all of you. :)

 

But we have two sea days now. Tomorrow is the Meet 'n' Mingle.

 

:)

 

Amazing how flashing a card is so important these days.

[emmy]

Great reports from last evening on the ship Carol.. so much fun to read on a cold wintry morning :)

[Lynn the Cruiser]

Hi. I was on the Mariner for this cruise with Merion Mom. The Nelson's concert was great, one of the best shows I have seen at sea. They had loads of clips of their family starting back with Ozzie and Harriet. They played primarily Ricky Nelson songs but they did one of their own, maybe two. Their sister Tracey, (The actress), was in the audience with her young daughter. They did a great job of giving both the history of the family and giving a moving tribute to their dad, as well as doing a great job musically with only a 45 minute rehearsal with the Mariner band. They brought their touring guitarist Neil Zaza, who is fantastic and did some great solos. You can google his name to see some great vids of his guitar work, it's excellent. Many of the video clips featured Paul McCartney stating how influential Ricky Nelson was on him. It was a really excellent show, as was all the entertainment last week, it was just great and the ice show is the best I have seen on RCCL ships.

Now I'm REALLY,REALLY jealous!!!!! Like I mentioned before, we watched all of the Ozzie & Harriet re-runs on the Liberty, then when we got home we got the Ricky Nelson CD and DVD's of the old shows!!!!!!

[Lynn the Cruiser]

Which brings us to the show.

 

Tonight, the Nelson brothers repeated the show which I saw last week on the New Year's Eve cruise.

 

Since we are on main seating, we got the first Nelson show at 9 P.M. It was fantastic. We could only get seats in the about the 8th row, but we sang and danced and clapped and whooped anyway. Not a very active or excited crowd. Tough on them. :eek:

 

We enjoyed it so much that we went back for the second show, scheduled for 10:45.

 

This time we managed to sit in the second row.

 

This audience was more lively, but we still outdid them by singing, dancing, whooping, cheering, etc. We even whooped and screamed for Andrew, the drummer, as I mentioned.

 

After the second show, we went to the Wig and Gavel, where we sang for another hour or so with Mark b. Good times.

 

Then we wandered into the casino, to see just how deserted it was. It was deserted.

 

Then I discovered that I had left my SeaPass in a slot machine earlier, but the casino cashier had it. (phew!) Then we chatted for a while with Dave, a blackjack dealer from England. He doesn't mind so much that it is dead. Yes, he is losing income, but everyone is getting more downtime, and they are all really looking forward to visiting the amazing ports.

 

Then Pat wandered by, and we all talked about how much we LOVED the Nelsons. She said, "Oh, they are sitting and eating in the back corner of the Café Promenade right now."

 

Before she had finished pronouncing "Promenade", I was sprinting up the stairs.

 

We approached their table, and they couldn't have been lovelier!

 

We stood there and chatted with Matthew and Gunnar, and Tracy, and Neil.

 

Yes, they remembered me, and my daughter, from last week. Yes, they had seen us and heard us at both shows. After quite a few minutes of conversation, during which I suggested to Gunnar that he lose the jacket and do the show in just his t-shirt, as he had done last week , Gunnar said, "Hey, have you guys seen "Dumb and Dumber"? It's the greatest movie to just have some great belly laughs. The movie guy said that if no one shows up for the 1 a.m. screening of The Bucket List, he'll put on Dumb and Dumber for us."

 

So we all went down to the Deck 2 screening room. Unfortunately, ONE LONE GUY was sitting there, watching The Bucket List.

 

I invited them all to come up to our RFS to watch it, but Matthew or Gunnar said that they really wanted to watch it on a big screen.

 

So we stood around on Deck 2, chatting, for another 20 minutes or so. Jeannine honed in on Gunnar, I was talking with Tracy and Remy (her daughter), and Woody was talking with Matthew, and everyone was talking with everyone. Then Woody left, and Matthew left, and Tracy & Remy left..................and Cindy and Jeannine and I took pictures of each other with Gunnar!!!!! I can't wait to upload the picture.....Gunnar and I are hugging!!!!!!!

 

What a night!

You are KILLING me!!!!!!!!!!:eek::D

[rubrrick]

So........... I have a question for the cruisers..........how many are running blogs of this trip..............and where can they be found??

 

Thanks Carol.......for giving me the CORRECT times last night. I don't know who posted that Muster Drill was at 5PM and the Captains reception for the Main Seating dinner was at 5:30.

 

What you said last night makes much more sense!!:)

 

Have a great SeaDay!!

 

Rick

[cruisldy]

Hey there, Sheila!! As posted, this Captain Johnny is the one you were asking about. Jeff and I once got to take a picture of him riding his Harley up the gangplank at Port Canaveral!

 

How cool you're going on Mariner in June...but a bummer that we're going in May! I thought about you recently...we booked Radiance out of San Diego, four days, Septemeber 30th. It was an awesome price when we booked...would love to see you two again!

 

Terri, how nice to see you. I have looked for you, but guess we haven't been hanging in the right cruise circles lately. Well, bummer, about when you guys are sailing. And am looking at the Radiance for November. Want a 5 dayer.

 

OK, I'm backing off now, lest I get punished for high-jacking this thread. Sorry all.

[wrp96]

Carol, hmm a piano player and now a drummer?;):p:D

[rubrrick]

Carol, hmm a piano player and now a drummer?;):p:D

 

 

Geez Wrona..........you can be soooooooooo cruel sometimes!!:D:eek:;)

 

Rick

[wrp96]

Geez Wrona..........you can be soooooooooo cruel sometimes!!:D:eek:;)

 

Rick

 

 

What can I say, I get down to the interesting stuff in her posts!!:p

[petesweet]

It is a passengers responsibility to ensure they have the necessary visas for the countries they will be visiting whether travelling by air or sea. It is also the responsiblity of the airline or cruise company to check for the correct visas for all passengers prior to boarding. If they allow someone to board without the correct document they, the airline or cruise company, are fined big dollars and I mean throusands not hundreds for every person who boards without the correct documentation.

 

Just my pennies worth.

 

Jillybean:)

 

I have to step in here in defense of at least some of those people.

 

I am a very experienced traveler. Russia (three times) and China (twice) are the only two that have required Visas. When we traveled to those locales, everything and everyone we dealt with had major discussions about the visa requirements.

 

I don't know how much was made of visas for this cruise. Was the information front and center? or did people have to read through all the fine print on their cruise documents? After you have cruised as much as we have, you don't read those documents any more. And if your travels have been in the "usual" tourist locations in Europe, you don't need visas. And, of course, not everyone comes to Cruise Critic for information like I do.

 

If I had booked this cruise and was not a member of CC, I might very well have been in that group. (Don't use a travel agent because of one bad experience, and he probably would not have alerted me if I had used him.)

 

I'm not defending or blaming, just admitting my own stupidity. Just curious. (And no, RCCL should not be held liable, but I'm asking how much emphasis was placed on this.)

[TheMiz]

Question for any of the gang on board.

 

I have just read that RCCL is now charging $3.95 for room service.

Is this true? IF so this will cut in to the tips to the person delivering them

[TPKeller]

Question for any of the gang on board.

 

I have just read that RCCL is now charging $3.95 for room service.

Is this true? IF so this will cut in to the tips to the person delivering them

Check the update on this, with comments from RCCL.

 

"...will be rolled out on a ship-by-ship basis between January 13 and 23..."

 

Theron

[TheMiz]

Check the update on this, with comments from RCCL.

 

"...will be rolled out on a ship-by-ship basis between January 13 and 23..."

 

Theron

 

 

Thanks for posting the link.

 

We use roomservice alot for breakfest so that is not a problem.

[petesweet]

Rick....I would find the schedule impossible to do on formal night. :eek:

What woman would want to be dressed fromal....run around to the life drill in formal attire and still be presentalbe to the Captains reception all with in 30 minutes? :eek:....please tell Bobbie to tell all the ladies......I said GOOD LUCK! :D :D

 

***

 

Should have worn the life jackets to the special events - maybe the captain would get the point?!:D

[berman947]

MM, will you and the girls get a bridge tour on this journey?

[Arizona Cruz Chic]

Carol....72 (visa-less) passengers to embark in Barbados.....Thats quite a few, I wonder how many went home?

I had to LOL...can you imagine the chaos at the office in Miami where they applied. 72 all at once.....what a sight that must of been! :eek:

 

Glad the life drill schedule worked out.

 

I hope we will see the Nelsons on a future cruise....they sound wonderful!

 

Hope you are enjoying your sea days!!!

 

***

[rubrrick]

Should have worn the life jackets to the special events - maybe the captain would get the point?!:D

 

 

It turns out that I was given Mis information. Turns out that the muster drill was held at 4 PM.........main seating for dinner at 6 PM and then the Captains reception at 7:30.:)

 

Rick

[petesweet]

Actually, despite what I have read here on a daily basis for the larger portion of a decade, I am shocked. I went on a cruise where the Visa was required for Brazil, and I remembered it is actually difficult to get this visa if you don't happen to live in one of the 7 or so cities that have an embassey of Brazil, and how I spent months figuring out how to accomplish this without spending extra bucks with an expediting company. The documents, and I am not talking just about the cruise tickets, but all of invoices, and quotes, etc. All stated the requirements. They even said I needed the Yellow Fever shots, even though in my case we didn't, actually, in other words it was impossible to miss the requirement. Now, of course, it would be relatively easy to just ignore these requirements, and that 150 people would spend the money to book a cruise and then just show up figuring that RCI could make it work without meeting the requirements, is shocking, even to a veteran of this forum. Truly.

 

jc

 

That's the information I was looking for. With that, there is no excuse, even for someone like me who would not have read all the fine print. Especially if you have taken a Baltics cruise, you would have thought you would not be left behind without a visa.

[CVU]

That's the information I was looking for. With that, there is no excuse, even for someone like me who would not have read all the fine print. Especially if you have taken a Baltics cruise, you would have thought you would not be left behind without a visa.

 

We are taking a Baltic cruise this summer but understand that the tour guide looks after you in St. Petersburg, Russia and you don't need a Visa?

[tinkerme1]

Carol, through it all, sounds like you're having a fabulous time!

 

The $3.95 charge for room service is between certain hours - I believe from midnight to some early morning hour. Carol, I guess that means you! LOL!

It seems so sad that CocoCay was so quiet. We had a great time there in November, even though it was short due to weather conditions.

 

BTW, how is the weather?:D

 

I'm truly surprised that folks didn't join in with "99 bottles of beer on the wall." They must not want to have fun.:eek: Well, keep making your own! That's what we love about you!