mariner of the seas help please

[dianemh]

hi all,

 

I'm new to this board and am thinking about booking 2, 7 night cruises 24th Sept Western Caribbean, then 1st Oct Eastern. They are on Mariner of the seas.

The ports are; Hispaniola, Ochio Rios, George Town,Cozumel, Nassau, St Thomas, and St Maarten. Can anyone tell be if these are nice places to see. Also is this a good time of year?

Any help would be great,

Thanks in advance..

[BPWJR]

great ship & sure you will get opinions on preferences or can look at other boards for info on each stop. One note, still hurricane season that time of year, so may not always get to where your suppose to if a storm comes up

[JohnIV]

Maybe because i live in florida and go through hurricane season every year but I would never cruise anytime during prime hurricane season especially sept and oct when tropical storms are the most frequent in the carribean:(

[DDnRD]

We have booked our past 3 cruises during hurricane season, and never had weather problems. On the other hand, ship trouble, but never weather. We are booked again, 8 of us this time for 10/29/06.:D

[winncove]

We've sailed the Mariner twice in hurricane season. Least expensive, fewer kids and more convenient for us. The Capt. keeps you far away from the bad weather. We were inconvenienced/Stressed w/Capital S on one of those because we couldn't get back into port and had to ride a bus from Miami-Port Canaveral when Francis came thru. Fortunately we drove to port so only had to worry about if we had a car & how would we get to Cocoa Beach to find out. Fly ins had much more stress. RCI was fantastic about updates and making arrangements. Yes, we did it again for the Eastern last Oct.[ which is my favorite, esp St. Maarten.] Yes . We'd do it again.

[firstcruise05]

I sailed on the Mariner in October last year and we had fair skies and smooth sailing. This was the week Hurricane Wilma tore up Mexico. We were on the Eastern itinery and the hurricane was in the West so we got lucky. But really, cruising during hurricane season is no big deal as long as you are flexible. If the hurricane is in the west, the ship will go to the east for example. The only real problem exists when the ship is delayed out to sea because a hurricane has hit Florida...that almost happened to us, we were going to stay out to sea one more day because Wilma was supposed to hit Florida on Sunday...as it turned out, it hit on Monday instead and we disembarked as scheduled. But the folks on the next sailing would have had a shorter cruise...that is the only problem. Just make sure you get trip insurance.

 

As far as your ports: St. Thomas and St. Maarten are absolutely beautiful (St. Maarten is the best in my opinion). I've never seen water as turquoise and pristine as it is there. We eventually want to go back so we can experience things we didn't get to last time.

 

Nassau is fine. Most people that have been there once just don't get off the ship if they have it as a port stop again. One of the biggest problems with Nassau is that you are usually only there for a few hours...not enough time really to do much in the way of excursions. We got off the ship, took a water taxi over to Paradise Island, and checked out Atlantis. I wanted to stop at Senor Frogs on the way back but we ran out of time. Atlantis is okay...in my opinion, it would be much nicer if they didn't charge you to do everything. (Like go through the Dig). It seems as though Sun International (the owners of Atlantis) are pretty much buying up all the land to expand Atlantis. But if you've never been to Nassau before, you'll have a fine time.

[heydn62]

We're booked on the Mariner 10/01 and unless there's been a change to the eastern itinerary, it's Coco Cay and not Nassau. This was one of the reasons we booked this cruise as we've done both ports and preferred Coco Cay. We were there the same week last year and it was wonderful. It is October though, so you never know.

 

..

[knothead]

We were on the Mariner last Oct.2 Eastern route. We had beautiful weather. Rain on us in St. Thomas but didn't last long! I would cruise again at this time in a heart beat but be flexible. Realize you might not get to go or your ports might change. Go with the flow and enjoy!