Mariner review-April 10 Western Caribbean...LONG

[creempuff0530]

Since I have gotten so much from these boards, I thounght I'd give a little back with a detailed review. Just for some background, we are Chrissi(28), and Jason (30). It was my third cruise(the other two were Carnival pride and Carnival Ecstacy) and Jason's first. We are from Northeast PA. The reason for this vacation is that Jason wanted to vacation in Jamaica, so I told him we could take a cruise there;). He is now a cruise addict as well:)

 

SUNDAY EMBARKATION-

 

I should tell you that I would have liked to fly down Sat, but I had to work. So I figured that I would just come home from work and pack and then relax so we could catch our 620am flight. WRONG! Jason is a big 80's fan and won free tickets to see Duran Duran sat night. After the concert and packing, it was well after 2am when we got to bed. I was too excited to sleep anyway. SO we were running on pure adrenaline. We left from a small airport near our home and had a layover in Philly. We arrived in Orlando at 1230pm and collected our luggage-which took FOREVER to get-and then met the RC people to catch our bus to the pier. We had about a 15 min wait and we were off. The drive to the pier was about 45 mins from the airport. We pull up in the pier and there she is! Jason is even impressed(and he never shows any kind of excitement). Check in was a breeze-there was no line at all but it was around 230pm so maybe we missed the rush. We get onboard and got to check out our room. We have a promanade room on deck 7. Small but cozy enough for two adults. I really liked the promanade rooms. Sure beats an inside with no window! We explore the ship for a while and Jason crashes until dinner(late seating). We had a table for 6, but it was just us and another young couple from Jacksonville. After dinner we catch the Welcome Aboard parade. I think this parade was better than the one the last night. We hit the hot tubs, have a few drinks and call it a night after our day of traveling.

 

MONDAY AT SEA

 

We figure we might as well sleep in since it's a sea day and we are still recouperating from yesterday. We hung out by the pool for most of the day and worked on our tans-it was a little cloudy at first but cleared up later in the afternoon. I missed the M&M:( oops I knew that would happen I forgot to sign up for it too! I did catch some of the bellyflop contest though. This was our first formal night. After dinner we decide to do hottub and drinks again.

 

 

TUESDAY LABADEE

 

No wait for the tenders when we left the ship at 1030am. We went to the Haitian flea market. The people were a little pushy, but I've seen pushier in parts of Mexico on past cruises and they were difintely pushier in Jamaica. Overall I really didn't think they were bad. I bought a piece of metal art and then we hit the beach. We went to a nice secluded one in the back. Water mats are $10 each but people were starting to vacate theirs so we just grabed two that were no longer being claimed by anyone. I tried snorkeling a bit but there wasn't really much to see. We went to grab lunch at 130pm since it closed at 2. It was a tasty barbeque type of set up. We watched the Haitian dance show while we ate. We had to be on the ship at 330pm, so at about 245pm we moved over to the beach that was closer to the ship. We got some nice pics by the rocks and swam for a bit more until we caught one of the last tenders back to the ship. Overall we really enjoyed our day at Labadee and would enjoy stopping there again on a future cruise

 

More to follow

[MackMasterson]

Thanks for the review...Can't wait for the rest...We'll be on her in less than 2 weeks!!! WOOHOO!!!

[creempuff0530]

TUESDAY CONTD

 

After we got back to the ship we decided to try the rock clinbing wall. Neither of us had ever tried before, but we both made it to the top! It was a little hard, but a lot of fun to do. After dinner we went to Quest-DO NOT MISS THIS IT IS A RIOT!! I think we were on team 5, and Jason ended up going on stage in his underwear. Just for reference for anyone who cruised with me, when the CD was holding up the three bras that he said were as big as the hammocks at Labadee,I was the owner of the orange one. I had on an orange shirt that matched and when we were in the elevator later that night someone came up to me and asked if that was my orange bra at Quest! Too funny!

 

WEDNESDAY JAMAICA

 

When we got off the ship we walked over to Island village to shop and look around. I bought a piece of wooden art-they had a lot of nice wood carvings. We then walked over to the Taj Mahal where I bought some Jamaican coffee and a shot glass. At this point the people were no pushier than in Haiti so we decided to be brave and walk into town further. WOW talk about scary! Although I did think it was funny when a guy came up to us and said "taxi?" which we declined, so he said"pot?", which we also declined, and he then said"cocaine?" We went to a flea market type thing but Jason got freaked out(although I wasn't scared) so we left. I was okay until a guy came up to Jason and asked if I was his girlfriend and told Jason that he would "take care of me" for him. Umm ok I think it's time to start heading back closer to the ship.:0 We were going to go to the beach at Margaritaville, but it looked pretty dead so we went over to Ocean Bay Beach instead.(it's on the other side when you walk off the ship..thanks Radio). We tossed aroud the idea of renting waverunners, but there were actually two guys fighting over who was going to rent them to us! We quickly changed our minds and just relaxed on the beach-we had a nice view of the ship there. I do have to say that after the waverunner incident, no one hassled us at all on this beach. There was a guy selling ice cream,and a guy selling soda and beer, but they didn't come up to us, you jsut went to them if you wanted anything. We stayed here until about 420pm and then headed back to the ship.

 

Overall we were not impressed with Jamaica. Although we had a nice day there, it was our least favorite stop of the cruise, which I think is funny since Jason is the one that wanted to go to Jamaica in the first place. If we went back again, we would most likely do an excursion. We werent interested in the falls, but we'd probably do that or the river rafting just for something to do.

 

After dinner we hung out for bit at Dragon's lair and then went to bed as we had to get up early for tomorrow

[over the edge]

Come back Creampuff0530, don't leave us hanging. A great review!! :)

[ga-shel]

Thanks for the review, I have a long ways to go.

[creempuff0530]

THURSDAY GRAND CAYMAN

 

I had prebooked with Soto's online after reading recommendations from these boards. I highly recommend Soto's as well and would use them again in the future. It was $30 pp and we went to the coral gardens for some snorkeling and then on to Stingray City. We were supposed to meet Randy from Soto's at 930am ship time at a parking lot just a short walk from the pier. We were a little late getting up, and didn't actually leave the ship until 930. Again there was no wait for a tender at the time we left the ship. By the time we tendered and walked to our designated location it was 945. But no problems at all, 5 min later Randy showed up and picked us up along with a couple and their son that came in on the Westerdam. He had picked up ome other people earlier and came back to get the stragglers like us:). Let me just interject here that there were 7 ships including the Mariner at GC that day and it was packed both at the pier and in town! There was a total of about 20 people including us on the Soto's tour. We were the only ones at the Coral Gardens where we saw a lot of neat looking fish. We spent about 1/2 snorkeling there. At stingray city there were several groups besides ours, but there were stingrays everywhere. Thye were HUGE and they would just swim right into you. They were very friendly and you could just pet them as they went by. Randy gave us all squid to feed the stingrays with and he helped everyone hold one that wanted to. I had to talk Jason into holding one though;) We also spent about 1/2 hour here. This was an unforgettable experience for us both. Oh,and there was ice water on the soto's boat for everyone and also a freshwater hose to rinse the saltwater off with. Overall we really liked GC and Jason said we should move there!!(yes, no more snowy winters!!!!)

It was almost 1pm when Randy was driving us back into town. He offered to drive anyone to 7 mile beach that wanted to go, which is what we had originally planned to do, but we decided against it because when we were leaving the ship in the morning the captain announced that the port was going to be closing early due to an impending storm that was expected later in the day. That meant we had to be back on the ship earlier than expected at 300pm instead. The line of traffic to get back into town from the beach was LONG and we figured we wouldn't have much time at the beach anyway. So we did some shopping in town instead. I bought a couple rum cakes and a picture frame shaped like a stingray. Tons of jewelry stores here if that's what you are into. I myself prefer native type crafts to bring home:). Went to tender at about 245pm-it was chaos at the pier with so many ships trying to tender at once. Got in the line for the Rhapsody by mistake-oops(hey, at least it was still a Royal Caribbean ship!;))

After dinner we caught the show "Pure Energy" which was an 80's music show-it was pretty good. Did our standard hot tub and drinks again. Oh, we missed the "love and Marriage" show the night before, but caught a rerun of it on our tv and saw Tim and Candace win-and it was a hilarious show. Although me and Jason could have won if we were on it;)-we knew most of the answers about each other- but we are not married so we couldn't be on it.

We went to the deck party and buffet this night also for a little while. They were playing pretty good music until they started line dancing-not my style at all. So we wandered around the ship for a little bit more and then called it a night

[creempuff0530]

FRIDAY COZUMEL

 

Got off the ship about 11am. Not sure how many ships were in port this day, there were 3 at the International Pier including us, and I also saw the Westerdam and Conquest later on. I think there may have been other ships there as well. Jason wanted to walk around for a little bit as he was mesmerized by all of the cars(he is a big car freak,esp vw's which there were tons of). Jason didn't want to rent a car, and I didn't want a moped bc I've seen the way people drive in Mexico, so we took a $14 cab ride to Mr Sanchos. When we got there we saw 2 girls that we met on the ship there that had rented a dune buggy for only $40. hmm, maybe we should have done that! Well, as it turns out, we caught up with them later on the ship and they said that their dune buggy broke down at about 330pm on the other side of the island an they had to wait for someone to come get them! So maybe not getting one was a good thing. Anyway I chose Mr Sanchos for 2 reasons: it has a Mexican theme,which I liked bc we were, after all, in Mexico, and bc with the number of ships in port I was concerned Paradise Beach would have too many little kids running around. We also decided against the AI at Nachi Cocum bc I figured we wouldn't spend $60 on food and drinks at the beach anyway. we are more of the late night variety in case you haven't noticed;) Anyway, we really enjoyed our day at Mr Sanchos. They had shopping right there before you walked in and the beach was very nice and clean. They also had a nice pool with a waterfall, and some gardens to walk through with pretty birds. The bar area had swings you could sit on.There were some small jellyfish in the water early in the day but they cleared up after a little bit(you could swim with them-they did not sting-but it was nicer without them). We rented a waverunner here and took turns riding it-it was a blast! They also took our picture on the waverunner which came out nicer than some of the pics we had taken on the ship . We also got floaty beach mats since we enjoyed them so much at Labadee. I think it's interesting to note that we saw quite a few crew members from the Mariner at Mr Sanchos while we were there. The beach wasn't overcrowded, but there was a decent amount of people there. Anyway, I had printed a coupon for a free Margarita (with food purchase) on http://www.cozumelinsider.com . So I got my Margarita(very strong-just the way I like them), Jason had some drink called a Banana Mama that was also very tasty and we had a plate of nachos to sharre that were absolutely HUGE We stayed here till about 500pm, so I could get a little shopping in. When we were leaving we started to wonder how we were going to catch a cab back to the pier. No worries, there were cabs waiting at the entrance and again paid $14 for the return trip. I bought a metal sun/moon thing for my wall, and a picture frame that was made of wood and tin that says Cozumel and our names on it with a matching tin sun and moon. We went back to the ship at about 625pm

After dinner, we went to see a guest appearance of the BeatleManiacs, which if you haven't guessed already is a Beatles tribute band. We thought that the show was fantastic. Then we went to the midnight buffet9as if we needed to eat anything else;)). we went to the Dragon's Lair for a little bit but were pretty tired from the day so we headed up to bed.

[creempuff0530]

SATURDAY AT SEA

Since it was a sea day, we figured we would sleep in again. Just as we were getting up at around 11am, the Captain came on and said that we would have to make an unscheduled stop in Key West because there were 2 medical emergencies on board and there was no Coast Gaurd helicopter available. The seas were pretty choppy in the Florida Straits and it got even rockier that night as we were going full speed to get to PC. I actually got blown in the door as I was walking off the deck! Those poor people that had to be evacuated were put on gurneys, hoisted by ropes over the coast guard boats and then they were trying to land them on the boats with how rocky the water was. Holy crap I was scared for them. I don't know how true this is but I heard one was a heart attack victim and the other had been vomiting blood. Since it was our last day Jay bought a couple shirts that were 2 for $20 and I bought some of our photos. Yes, I know they are expensive but we don't really have any nice professional pictures of us even though we've been together for 10 years. So I bought a couple. We packed up some of our stuff and went off to dinner. After dinner we caught the parade. I thought the first one was better and they got more into that one, but that may have been due to the high seas we were expieriencing. We went outside on deck 4 to check out the waves and they were coming up pretty high. After the parade we went to Karaoke Idol which we both enjoyed-some of our fellow passengers can really sing. Then we went to Dragon's Lair and got pretty intoxicated as it was our last night and we had a long day of traveling ahead of us.

[windjamming]

Wow, Chrissi! Sounds like you had a great time. Can you share why you chose the Mariner vs another of the Voyager class? Also, how did you enjoy Port Canaveral vs Miami?

 

Also, I heard Sim Baker was the CD on the Mariner. We had him as an ACD on the Radiance last year, and he was hilarious. How is he as the CD?

[creempuff0530]

DEBARKATION

We were Yellow2 and our color was called at about 930 when we were eating breakfast in the Windjammer. Customs line went pretty quickly and we boarded a bus back to PC. We got there and checked in by 11am, but our flight didn't leave until 145pm and we had a 3hr layover in Philly on top of that. So when we checked in I asked if there was anyway we could be bumped to an earlier flight. So we lost our 3hr layover and it became a 45min one.

 

MISC STUFF

This was really the best vacation we've had so far. I enjoyed all of my cruises, but I think Royal Caribbean was better than Carnival. I really liked that they had 24 hr hot tubs and pool. Also, maybe it was just the time of year that we went, but I found less small children and more 20somethings on this cruise then the carnival ones I went on(June and September) and they are supposedly the "party ships". Jason is now a cruise addict-he was asking me when our next cruise was going to be before we got off this one! Jason was in the gym almost every day-he found the gym facilities to be exceptional on the Mariner. Hmm what else...That last night when the seas were high, our stateroom was really creaky-it was kind of hard to sleep. I do't know how the other cabins were but our tablemates also had a PR and they said their room was quite noisy that night as well. Other than that,noise was not an issue. I really can not say much negative thngs about this cruise. I will post a link to pics as soon as I get them up.

[creempuff0530]

Windjamming-I picked the Mariner bc of the ports that it stopped in(Jamaica for Jason, GC for me) and also because it had 4 ports and 2 sea days. Oh and also bc it was the newest ship at the time I booked, and since I was on the Pride when it was only 1yr old and I really enjoyed it I wanted to get a new ship if I could-although I'm sure that as long as I went Voyager class they all would be pretty much the same. Our CD was kurt Detwiler-he wasn't bad but I really don't pay that much attention to the CD's unless I find them to be outstanding. I found the captain to be quite humorous though.

[ciship]

creempuff, did you see any laundry facilities on the ship???

[creempuff0530]

The only laundry they had was to get it send out to be cleaned-there was no self laundry. As a side note, i was one of those bad people who smuggled a travel iron on, and I also brought a bottle of Downy Wrinkle Releaser. To be honest I only used the iron twice for Jason's foraml night shirts, the wrinkle releaser was fine for everything else. Jason used my shampoo to soak some of his clothes in our bathroom sink.

[creempuff0530]

here is a link to my photos:

 

http://community.webshots.com/user/cris530

[LLM]

Thank you for writing a wonderful review! I'm glad the two of you had such a great time. I do have to agree with you, I found the first parade to be much better than the last.

 

Lisa

[shipknotshore]

What a wonderful review and your photos were great too. We are going on the Navigator, but the same itinerary as you in less than two weeks. The photos of all the ports were just wonderful. Glad you had a great time and that you have made Jason a cruise addict along with the rest of us.