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Mariner is one of only two ships with the Bamboo Room, which was where I spent most of my drinking time. Absolutely loved the Zombie and the Bamboo Room Mai Tai. (Was not a fan of Benny's Mai Tai.) The Bamboo Room Mai Tai recipe was surprisingly faithful to the original Mai Tai recipe as made by Trader Vic in 1944. The last drop of the rum Vic used to use (Wray & Nephew 17 year) ran out long ago, but the rest of the recipe is pretty close (orgeat, curacao, lime juice and a couple of good rums). Excellent drink, probably the drink I had most frequently on the ship.

Was Raj back behind the bar? And was Sabrina still there as well? They were the best on my cruise...

I will second (third? fourth?) breakfast in the restaurant. While I didn't think the food was significantly better than Windjammer (and definitely less variety) it was very nice to not have to deal with the madhouse at WJ. The one morning I tried to eat at WJ I couldn't find a table so I gave up and went back to the suite breakfast at Chops. Also, don't think anyone's mentioned this yet, but you can have MDR food served in your room. The first night I had my entire dinner delivered to my room and had it out on my balcony. It was a lovely experience.

Also true, particularly on that cruise. You could've easily beat us to Ensenada by bicycle.

Late to this discussion, but this must be a fairly common thing. Was on the Navigator in October, and during dinner I said "what a beautiful sunset... on the wrong side of the ship? Are we heading back to LA already?" But a few minutes later that beautiful sunset continued on the other side of the ship. We were definitely going in a circle. Maybe that was so that people on both sides of the dining room could enjoy the sunset, I don't know. I thought it might also have to do with the fact that our sailing was the first where they were using a new renewable fuel source and speculated that they might be trying to get a sense of how well it was working. Whatever the reason, we were definitely doing loop-de-loops at sea.

Is this something that RC often carries? It's usually pretty hard to find here in the States... at least for the price it's supposed to be. It's not too difficult where I live to find it for way over MSRP, but trying to find a bottle at "normal" pricing can be quite challenging.

I was in a suite at the end of October. I received an e-mail from the concierge about a week out letting me know about the suite perks, etc. I didn't contact her ahead of time because we weren't going to be eating in any specialty dining venues, and we were traveling with another family that didn't book a suite so we planned to sit with them at shows (not that we needed reservations for those anyway if you showed up a few minutes early). As for breakfast at Chops, I did end up doing that primarily for convenience. Windjammer was SLAMMED for breakfast and it was hard to find a table. The food was... fine. I thought the dinners in the MDR were much better. I suppose I haven't reached a station in life where I'm used to having a concierge, so I wasn't really sure how I was supposed to use that service. She was nice- almost too nice, stopping by during breakfast and weirdly knowing my name- but I can't say I ever asked her to do anything for me.

Wow! If we already have a flight booked, are we able to change to one of these flights? We're flying out of a different airport, but I see something similar...

In my head this sounded like someone pulling the pin out of a grenade and tossing it into this forum

Thanks! Eager to see how a lot of these taste, but I'm totally fine with these on paper (literally).

Which cruise? I was looking at this week's Symphony cruise, which I thought was the only one in the app that reflected the new menu.

Wondering if that's because it was NYE.

I probably spent half my cruise (not an exaggeration) in the Bamboo Room when I was on the ship in October. I believe Caleb was also working then (I'd remember him if I saw his face) but Raj was the main bartender at the time. He was about to take a well deserved break to go home for a while, so Sabrina (my favorite waitress from the cruise who was in the Schooner) had been promoted to bartender in the Bamboo Room. Raj was awesome. I was always surprised that the Bamboo Room wasn't more crowded than it was for most of the cruise. It's a great bar with very good drinks. Maybe it's the lack of music? (Raj kept saying that they were coming "tomorrow" to fix it, but never did- started to think he was just messing with me and they never had music in there.) From time to time there would be a decent number of people in there, but more often than not it was just me, my buddy and maybe a couple of other folks.

I did something kinda similar recently... was disembarking, and somehow managed to leave my passport on a counter in my suite. Didn't realize it until I was about to hit customs and went to pull it out of my bag. I was unpacking my suitcase and looking through every item of clothing, etc. in the customs line (but somehow not drawing any suspicion, which I thought was strange). I was all set to try to explain the situation to the customs rep, but they did the facial scan and sent me on my way. Went home, immediately filed a "lost and found" request, and about a month later my passport showed up at my door. (Why it took a month is another frustrating story- but suffice to say that you should never leave anything behind on the ship that you'll need in the near future.) I will say that if my wife had been on the cruise there's virtually no chance this would have happened... I'm usually pretty good at remembering this kind of thing, but she's way more obsessive about it.

I was on the ship in October. Like others mentioned the ice show was good. I liked the guy in the pub (but no idea if it will be the same person when you go). There was a jazz band in Boleros one night that was excellent, and I don't even really like jazz that much. Also a comedian that was ok, not great. Show was (mostly) family friendly, he just wasn't as good as many others I've seen. Though I'm spoiled because I live near LA and can see stellar comedy at the Comedy Store, Improv, etc.

I was having the same issue with a soda package for my son (charge wouldn't go through after multiple attempts, but now have several pending charges on my cc). But I went to the app and was able to buy it successfully there. But the deluxe beverage package is now back to buy one, get one free. Thankfully I was able to snag it last night when it was 35% off. Only saw it at that price for a few minutes, and it was hell trying to complete the purchase, but I have the confirmation so they better honor it!

One caveat to this is that if you Royal Up from a non-suite to a suite you do not get the double points. Only if you book JS or above from the beginning.

Back in 2018 we did a "Land and Sea" tour (through a company called Seahorse, I think) where we had a cool catamaran ride to see celebrity mansions and stuff and then we had a land tour that went to some of the places you've mentioned (the fort and the staircase) before dropping us off to hang out at Atlantis for a while. We didn't stop at the distillery, but otherwise it covered the places you mentioned. It was the same tour available through RC, but we booked it directly with the company (it was cheaper that way). But again, it was the exact same tour, and we would have been on the same boat and bus had we booked direct through RC. They were very conscious about getting us back to our ship on time because they knew that the tour was pretty much all ship passengers.

Canadians have a reputation for being friendly, helpful and funny but I guess there's always exceptions.

I've seen it happen when people cancel. You can also try to figure out which tour company is doing that particular excursion (they're often 3rd party vendors) and see if you can book directly with them. Usually cheaper that way anyway.

I didn't feel the need to explain the reason for my question. Thank you to those who provided helpful responses!

Good point. There's going to be 6 of us, and while my own family usually orders and eats quite quickly the people we'll be with may not be quite so quick. We're planning on eating there each night, will not be in port any of the 3 nights (I think we have to be back on the ship before dinner the 1 day we're in port).

We're sailing on the Navigator at the end of this month and I'm wondering if anyone with recent experience dining in Navigator's MDR can give me an idea for how long they spent on average at dinner in the MDR. We've got the early seating, if that matters (I can see how it might). Thanks!

I've also had it for 7 years or so and it's awesome. At the airport I most frequently use I know that I can show up at the airport about 15 minutes before my boarding time and it's highly unlikely that I won't make it to my gate on time. I've been to airports where the regular line isn't super-long and others where the regular line is an absolute nightmare, but since I've had pre-check I've never been to an airport where the TSA line took more than about 5 minutes. Best $85 you'll ever spend if you fly once a year or more on average.

Thanks- I didn't receive an invitation, but at the 45 day mark I was able to log in to the site and make some bids. Fingers crossed!