Mariner LIVE! - 09/30 to 10/04/2019 - Back to the Suite Life!

[ValleyCruiser]

Greetings Fellow Cruise Lovers!

 

My family and I are on a nearly two-week vacation consisting of a cruise to the Bahamas and a visit to Walt Disney World afterwards. I will be boarding the Royally Amplified Mariner of the Seas later today out of Port Canaveral, and thought I would share my experiences on this cruise with the online community here. This is one way for me to channel my excitement into something productive and hopefully helpful, and my goal is to post pictures and video throughout my journey that share my perspective on this beautiful ship, which I have sailed on twice before, but that was over 12 years ago prior. Anyway, following is a little background about me and my family pre-cruise before we board the ship!

 

WHY I CRUISE

My chosen career path has been a software developer by trade, primarily as part of Information Technology (IT) within various business organizations. Lately I have primarily worked in-house for law firm IT departments in the areas of database development and document management administration, so I interact with lots of different types of people daily, and to say that I am familiar with stress, deadlines, rude people, etc. would be an understatement.

 

When I first started cruising, I could tell my superiors that there was no way they could get in touch with me since at that time cell service, WiFi, and just overall connectivity was much less widespread, and much more expensive, than it is today, and that they would just have to deal with my absence the best they could until I returned. Today, I can't really use that as an excuse, although they don't know that! Anyway, cruising is still my preferred method to detach from all of the drama and chill, relax, wind down, de-stress--however you want to describe it--and allows me to return to normal life refreshed and ready to go another few months taking blame for things that go wrong, don't work as expected, break down, etc., all with a wonderful smile and calm demeanor, providing the wonderful service to others I would expect. Thankfully, I get compensated well enough to take these nice breaks!

 

Now that my main reason for cruising has been explained, I can also say that I love to cruise because I really enjoy the feeling of being out in the middle of water nowhere, the many varied food options (I love to eat!), the many entertainment and activity options all in one place, and finally, the ports of call to which I sail, in that order. Really, for me, cruising is all about the ship; I really don't care as much where I go!

 

CRUISING BACKGROUND

My wife and I discovered cruising on our second anniversary back in 2003, and since then have been on approximately a dozen cruises, some pre-kids, and about the same since they were born. The Mariner was our daughter's first cruise back in 2007 at 10 months, and she is now nearly 13. Our son is 11. We have cruised as a couple, as a family, with extended family, and as Angelinos have cruised out of Los Angeles and Long Beach on West Coast sailings, but also out of New York City and Port Canaveral (Orlando) on Bahamas, Eastern Caribbean, and Western Caribbean itineraries. I do have a couple of exceptions to my statement earlier about not caring where I cruise. My two dream sailings, at least before I start looking at really exotic itineraries, are to cruise both Alaska and the Mediterranean within the near future. I also hope to visit the Southern Caribbean by ship soon.

 

I have sailed on Princess, Norwegian, Carnival, and, of course, Royal Caribbean, and have never been on a bad cruise. I think each of these lines does certain things well, and have enjoyed better food on some, better entertainment on others, etc., knowing that a cruise is mostly what I make of it, and I select the itineraries and ships that I have a good idea will please me and my family. That being said, my favorite thing about sailing Royal Caribbean, by far, is their ships. I have never been on an Oasis-class, Spectrum-class, or even Freedom-class vessel of theirs, but that doesn't mean I don't intend to sail on some of them someday. The largest ship I have ever sailed on is Mariner, but compared to other lines it's still quite a large ship.

 

We were booked on Freedom of the Seas back in 2006 before we found out we were expecting our first child, so in re-booking to sail prior to the pregnancy cutoff date, we switched ships to Mariner and upgraded from a Junior Suite to our first full suite experience in a Grand Suite. Since then, it has been a struggle to stay away from suites when cruising, especially with all the perks available. So far, we have been most impressed with NCL's suites and perks, but are looking forward to our first sailing with Royal since they introduced their Royal Suite Class program a few years ago, even though we won't get the full experience of the suite life on an Oasis- or Spectrum-class ship.

 

PRE-CRUISE EXPERIENCE

 

Flight -- As residents of the Los Angeles metro area, we have sailed out of that area most often, and haven't needed to worry about flights, transportation, etc. as much. However, Royal has significantly pulled back its West Coast presence since we first started cruising, so to get on their ships it usually means a cross-country flight. This time, I found a good deal on Delta, so we flew into Orlando this past Saturday, 09/28, and after a 2.5 hour layover in Atlanta, which lived up to its "Hotlanta" monniker, we successfully landed in the evening and took our complimentary hotel shuttle to our hotel for the next two nights.

 

Pre-Cruise Hotel -- As a World of Hyatt member, I booked our two-night Orlando stay before our cruise at the Hyatt Place Orlando Airport hotel, and overall the stay has been enjoyable and the rate reasonable. I liked that the hotel had a shuttle from the airport, the wait for the shuttle wasn't long at all, and also liked that the breakfast is complimentary (as a parent of pre-teens I look for value when it comes to paying for their food as I never know what they'll enjoy) and the tiny gym is open 24-hours. The gym time came in handy as when I arrived I was still on California time and used a late-night workout to get me ready to fall asleep. The only issue I encountered, which wasn't really the hotel's fault, was that because the hotel was full and we were the last party to check-in for the evening, we were given an accessible room, and my kids were a little put off by everything being at their eye-level! There was plenty of dining within walking distance, and yesterday on the way to dinner my children were introduced to the wonderful Florida humidity by getting to experience a 1-minute evening downpour that freaked my daughter out because she isn't used to warm rain. She's right, because as she stated, if and when it rains in L.A., it is usually a cold rain with wind and all that unpleasant stuff! We Los Angeles residents are pretty spoiled when it comes to weather.

 

Transportation to Port -- I booked a private chauffeured transfer in an SUV from our airport hotel to the cruise terminal, from the cruise terminal to our Orlando resort for our Disney World portion of our trip, and then from our resort back to the airport for what  I would consider a reasonable $300, gratuity included, through Priceless Transportation. Shuttles don't work for us because it's hard to sit in anticipation while the shuttle does it's many various pick-ups prior to leaving for the port, and I didn't feel like driving so a rental car was out. Plus, I didn't want to have to pay for parking after our cruise at Disney World, so this set up I expect to work for us. In fact, the driver should be here in about 45 minutes so I will have to sign off for now.

 

I expect to attach the welcome letter we received from our Suite Concierge for this cruise, Sukriti Rai, later on today, as well as a few pictures from our trip to the ship and the boarding process. Can't wait!

[Cruisegirl6]

Following.

 

How was the overall disembarkation process, what time did you get off the ship and did you walk your luggage off?

[suesnake2002]

It will be very interesting to see the the suite life on a smaller ship. Enjoy!!

[kelbell]

Looking forward too your review.  We are on her in Dec 2019

 

[Milwaukee Eight]

Love the Suite Life

[ValleyCruiser]

Our driver for the trip from our hotel near the Orlando International Airport arrived on time, in fact, about 20 minutes early for our 9:30 a.m. appointment, but we weren't ready to walk out the door until 9:33 a.m. It took us a few minutes to get the family and luggage loaded into the vehicle, and we were on our way at 9:37.

 

The trip was uneventful and smooth, with no traffic and good conversation. The driver, Jimmy, is a native New Yorker who is a transplant to the Orlando area, and we discussed everything from baseball (I'm a big Dodgers fan and he's a Mets and Jets fan, wow!) to alligators to jokes about the new water slides on Mariner and how there was a "trap door" in them that opened up and let bad children "fall into the water". I think he said all that to get a reaction out of our kids but it probably went right over their heads. They were more excited about the ships we saw in port as we drew closer to the cruise terminal. All in all, there were five ships in port today: two Carnival ships, Liberty and Elation, which left first, Norwegian Sun, which left right before Mariner, and Disney Dream, which left after Mariner, I assume.

 

Anyway, we arrived at the cruise terminal at around 10:22 a.m. or so, and had our luggage handed off to a porter within a couple of minutes. I gave the luggage handler his tip, said good-bye to Jimmy and headed inside at 10:25 a.m.

 

Here is a photo of our first close-up view of the ship as we arrived at the cruise terminal.

[perfect match]

Love the start to your review! Can’t wait for the rest!

[LuCruise]

Excited to follow along. We were on Mariner last summer and have it booked again for next summer, with a few Disney days added to the end too.

 

It's funny as reading your post could have been written by me.  I'm a software developer too and when going on a cruise (which we've started going 2x a year), I let them know that we do not get internet and I cannot be reached.  (Plus love being on the water with food options, shows and activities).  So very similar comments (but we really don't get internet). 😊

 

Enjoy your cruise!  We quite like Mariner (DH's favorite ship so far) .

Edited October 1, 2019 by LuCruise

[Evilgrin72]

Following! 

[ValleyCruiser]

On 9/30/2019 at 7:11 AM, Cruisegirl6 said:

Following.

 

How was the overall disembarkation process, what time did you get off the ship and did you walk your luggage off?

The embarkation process was a breeze (more on that in a bit), but I am not certain how the disembarkation process will be yet. I am expecting to have breakfast in the dedicated suite venue, and we will likely not walk our luggage off since we're not in a hurry to get off the ship and won't have a plane to catch. So I don't know if my circumstances will be fit your question, but I will do my best to detail our disembarkation process in detail.

Edited October 1, 2019 by ValleyCruiser

[ValleyCruiser]

21 hours ago, suesnake2002 said:

It will be very interesting to see the the suite life on a smaller ship. Enjoy!!

I don't know why but your post made me really smile. It's funny, when we first cruised Mariner in 2006, she and her older sisters (Voyager class) had just been displaced by Freedom as the largest passenger ships in the world. It's funny how within a few short years so many ships, on both Royal and other lines, have gotten significantly larger. I guess I would say I still consider her a medium-large ship, especially compared to the Carnival and Princess ships.

[cruisegirl1976]

Enjoy.. can't wait to read your review..

[ValleyCruiser]

The embarkation process was quick and extremely simple. Upon entrance into the cruise terminal, there was a sign that showed the line for Suites & Pinnacles--a line that was non-existent, in fact, there were no lines anywhere prior to security--and we were asked by an agent holding a tablet whether we had completed Check-In or not. I stated we had checked in online and I had our Set Sail Passes in hand, but had not taken photos. She took photos of each person in our party, and then gave us a green laminated placard that said "Checked In" or something similar on it, then directed us to the security scanners.

 

Going through security is always a bit of a challenge for me (I admit, I am a bottleneck) because I have to always remove my work laptop and send it through separately, then remove my work phone, my personal phone, and my personal tablet and send all those devices through as well. Plus, I am already a naturally methodically person so speed isn't my most evident trait. Anyway, once I finished my two minutes passing through security my family was waiting on me impatiently and we were directed to make sure we showed the green placard to every agent we saw. We did, and they directed us up a set of escalators, into the waiting area for boarding, and to the VIP area, again for Suites & Pinnacles. We were there early enough that the doors to the ship hadn't even opened yet, so I took the 5 to 10 minutes of waiting to take a photo of the VIP lounge, which I hadn't seen photos of anywhere online prior.

[ValleyCruiser]

All in all, the time spent from dropping our luggage off to the time we were waiting in the VIP waiting area was less than 10 minutes, and would have probably been closer to 5 minutes if I wasn't stopping to take photos of things I wanted remember; every time I stopped to take a photo the terminal agents would give a little bemused look like "what in the world is he doing that for?"

 

Here are photos of the entrance to the VIP waiting area and a portion of the waiting area itself.

[STANMELB]

23 hours ago, suesnake2002 said:

It will be very interesting to see the the suite life on a smaller ship. Enjoy!!

 

After 35+ cruises on an Oasis Class ship in a full Suite, trying  an Owners Suite on this cruise. Probably will be our last on a smaller ship.

Really miss the Oasis Class Suite Lounge, Coastal Kitchen and convenience of the 17th floor cabins.

[ValleyCruiser]

After waiting in the VIP waiting area for about 10 minutes the crew was ready for us to board, and the doors opened. Just as we were about to go up the gangway onto the ship along with the other suite guests and loyalty members, we were directed about 100 feet further down to the Adventure Ocean staff assisting with embarkation, as it turns out since our son is 11, he is required to wear a wristband the entire cruise that will help the ship crew direct him to the correct muster station in case of ship emergency. With our daughter expected to be a part of the teen program she was not required to get a wristband.

 

Anyway, it was a quick detour and from what I can tell our son may have been the first child to board the ship. This was around 10:45 a.m. We entered at the rear bank of elevators on Deck 4, I believe, and I immediately checked in at the Main Dining Room  to see if the lunch for suite guests was ready, having forgotten what the Suite Concierge had stated in our pre-cruise correspondence. I was reminded the lunch would start at 12 p.m., so we walked around for a bit taking photos and trying to remember places in that portion of the ship to which we'd been on our two sailings many years ago.

 

Here is a photo of the Main Dining Room prior to all the guests that would be arriving and dining there later in the day and throughout the cruise.

[tcmagnum]

Looks like a great trip is planned...

[ValleyCruiser]

After wandering around for a few minutes, we checked to see if the entrance doors to the hallways were open so we could head to our suite and retrieve our SeaPass cards, and while the doors were unlocked, they were closed, so we decided to comply with the sign that said they'd be open by 1 p.m. and made our way up to Suite Lounge on Deck 14 to meet the Concierge, Sukriti.

 

On Deck 14, the starboard side of the rear deck is the Diamond Lounge and the port side is the Suite Lounge. In front of both of these venues is the Viking Crown Lounge. Anyway, the entrance to the Suite Lounge was ajar since I am assuming no one was expected to have their SeaPass cards yet, and we checked in with Sukriti. She provided us with an overview of the types of services with which she could assist us, and then we had a seat with others in the lounge and had a small bite to eat from the light fare set out. Complimentary bar service is offered in the lounge, and I ordered a soda for myself and the kids. We don't consume alcohol, but alcoholic drinks were available from the Cocktail menu I was provided. I actually enjoyed the seafood sandwiches they had, but the real hit with the entire family was the shrimp tempura with sweet chili sauce. I had to stop my son from filling up on that prior to lunch!

 

While we ate our light snacks Sukriti helped my wife, daughter, and myself get connected to ship's WiFi in order to use the complimentary Royal app, and also showed me how to connect to the Internet via the Internet package I had purchased before the cruise via my Cruise Planner.

 

The conversation with her was very interesting. She's from India but her family is actually Nepali, and her hometown is high among the Himalayas. She has been on Mariner for a few weeks, expects to be on the ship for around another month, and will then move on to Freedom for about a month before heading home for a break.

 

Once we finished getting set up, we headed down to Deck 3 of the Main Dining Room for the reserved lunch for suite guests.

[mac_tlc]

1 hour ago, ValleyCruiser said:

After waiting in the VIP waiting area for about 10 minutes the crew was ready for us to board, and the doors opened. Just as we were about to go up the gangway onto the ship along with the other suite guests and loyalty members, we were directed about 100 feet further down to the Adventure Ocean staff assisting with embarkation, as it turns out since our son is 11, he is required to wear a wristband the entire cruise that will help the ship crew direct him to the correct muster station in case of ship emergency. With our daughter expected to be a part of the teen program she was not required to get a wristband.

 

Anyway, it was a quick detour and from what I can tell our son may have been the first child to board the ship. This was around 10:45 a.m. We entered at the rear bank of elevators on Deck 4, I believe, and I immediately checked in at the Main Dining Room  to see if the lunch for suite guests was ready, having forgotten what the Suite Concierge had stated in our pre-cruise correspondence. I was reminded the lunch would start at 12 p.m., so we walked around for a bit taking photos and trying to remember places in that portion of the ship to which we'd been on our two sailings many years ago.

 

Here is a photo of the Main Dining Room prior to all the guests that would be arriving and dining there later in the day and throughout the cruise.

Now that’s a dining room. It is our favorite. So much nicer than the Oasis class, which feels so much more enclosed.

 

mac_tlc

[booplesnoople]

14 hours ago, ValleyCruiser said:

Our driver for the trip from our hotel near the Orlando International Airport arrived on time, in fact, about 20 minutes early for our 9:30 a.m. appointment, but we weren't ready to walk out the door until 9:33 a.m. It took us a few minutes to get the family and luggage loaded into the vehicle, and we were on our way at 9:37.

 

The trip was uneventful and smooth, with no traffic and good conversation. The driver, Jimmy, is a native New Yorker who is a transplant to the Orlando area, and we discussed everything from baseball (I'm a big Dodgers fan and he's a Mets and Jets fan, wow!) to alligators to jokes about the new water slides on Mariner and how there was a "trap door" in them that opened up and let bad children "fall into the water". I think he said all that to get a reaction out of our kids but it probably went right over their heads. They were more excited about the ships we saw in port as we drew closer to the cruise terminal. All in all, there were five ships in port today: two Carnival ships, Liberty and Elation, which left first, Norwegian Sun, which left right before Mariner, and Disney Dream, which left after Mariner, I assume.

 

Anyway, we arrived at the cruise terminal at around 10:22 a.m. or so, and had our luggage handed off to a porter within a couple of minutes. I gave the luggage handler his tip, said good-bye to Jimmy and headed inside at 10:25 a.m.

 

Here is a photo of our first close-up view of the ship as we arrived at the cruise terminal.

😍 That's gonna be my view in 27 days! Cmooooooooooooon October 28! Following, can't wait for your review.

[ValleyCruiser]

1 hour ago, mac_tlc said:

Now that’s a dining room. It is our favorite. So much nicer than the Oasis class, which feels so much more enclosed.

It's our favorite as well, although we've not sailed Oasis class yet, but this certainly is grand to our standards. I believe at one time during our earlier sailings the three floors actually had names, which DW and I really enjoyed: like "Sound of Music" and "Rhapsody in Blue" if I'm not mistaken (going off of memory here). I don't see those names referenced at all now and kind of miss that!

 

BTW, it was in this dining room in 2007 that I first slipped our DD her first taste of ice cream, much to the chagrin of DW! She loved it, and we relayed that story to her last night during dinner!

[torpeedo]

Question, we sailed the Mariner in May and we had a special luncheon on boarding day for Suite guests.  It was in our letter from Nadja who was the Concierge at the time.  Do they still have that?  We're on again soon.

[ValleyCruiser]

We had received a letter before our cruise from the Concierge that we were invited to "Welcome Lunch for our Top Suite & Pinnacle guests" which was to be served from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. in the Main Dining Room on Deck 3. So after we checked in with the Concierge in the Suite Lounge, we headed down to lunch. I kept my Set Sail Passes in hand just in case we needed them, but all that was needed was confirmation of our room number and we were seated.

 

Lunch was good and didn't take too long to serve. We all had the Shrimp Cocktail appetizer--DW and DS had two apiece and skipped the main course--and I added on the Cream of Potato and Jalapeno Soup, which in my opinion could have stood a bit of homestyle chunks of potato, but overall the flavor was very good. For the main course, DD had the Fusilli Pesto pasta dish, and I had the Atlantic Broiled Salmon. DD said the pasta was good, and it must have been because she ate most of it, and the salmon was quite good as well. For dessert we all had different things, ice cream, New York Cheesecake, and a chocolate dessert of some sort. Honestly, after a bite of DD's cheesecake I personally felt that I preferred my own NY Cheesecake. I like to bake as a hobby, and true story, although DW denies it to this day, I baked a cheesecake early in our marriage for the holidays, and I got one piece, and over the next few days she ate the remainder! LOL! Same thing happened to my Dad a couple of years ago. I baked a Key Lime Pie for my parents and Mom ate it all before Dad could get any! LOL! I'm saying all this to say that my first re-introduction to RC desserts was that they are okay, but nothing to write home about.

 

The only slight downside to the meal was that as our meal was winding down, the Head Waiter came over and attempted to sell us pretty hard on signing up for the Galley Tour and Champagne Brunch or whatever it's called the next day. He said he supposedly dropped the price and threw our kids in for free, and that they needed at least 12 to 15 signups or so to actually have the tour. Well, I didn't necessarily want to sign up but he pushed hard enough that DW was interested. I started with we'd "think about it and make a decision" but he came back with "why don't you sign up now and if you decide not to you can remove the charge" and so I had to bring out the big guns and use that famous two-letter word, "No", spoken firmly but pleasantly.

 

After the meal, on our way up to our room we passed the Windjammer and it was chaos, so we were grateful for a relaxing, quite lunch for embarkation and definitely hope they keep this perk for Mariner.

[ValleyCruiser]

26 minutes ago, torpeedo said:

Question, we sailed the Mariner in May and we had a special luncheon on boarding day for Suite guests.  It was in our letter from Nadja who was the Concierge at the time.  Do they still have that?  We're on again soon.

Yes, they do, at least, as of yesterday, 09/30. I just mentioned that in the previous post.

Edited October 1, 2019 by ValleyCruiser

[ValleyCruiser]

BTW, before I forget, as promised yesterday, here is the email DW and I both received from Sukriti, our Concierge, five days before our cruise.