Another 8/27 Mariner Review

[amyo28]

Hello all. Just back from the Mariner 8/27, my first cruise with my DH and another couple. We both had deck 8 cabins, us 8618 (center hump) and them 8316 (side hump.) First of all we had a GREAT time and loved the ship. On to the review:

 

CABIN/Packing etc.: Our cabin rocked. The location was great - right by the stairs/elevators, great view, but no noise. The only thing I heard was someone vacuuming the hallway one day. There was MORE than enough space for me and DH's things -- I liked all the clever spaces to put things and the suitcases fit right under the bed. I thought the bathroom was going to be TINY, it was much larger than I expected and had room for our stuff in the medicine cabinet. The balcony seemed big to me. Our cabin attendant was Anne, nothing special but nothing wrong either. For me the cabin started feeling small on day 6 and 7, but there is always the balcony if you feel claustrophobic. We brought one big suitcase and one medium suitcase. Clothes I brought that I didn't wear: tennis shoes, sweatpants, socks, sports bra, light jacket (I thought I would go to the workout center, ha ha). I wore flip flops or dressy flip flops the whole time. :)

 

ENTERTAINMENT: We didn't go to anything except the adult comedly show and the love and marriage game. THe adult comedy guy was pretty awful, in the opinion of me, DH and our travel companions -- he just wasn't funny to us. But, to each his own -- we are younger than the average age so maybe that was it. The love and marriage show was ok but the people they picked were sort of ridiculous -- one couple was asian and didn't speak english, and one lady was obviously drunk.

 

As for Kirk -- sorry but we hated him. :) I'm sure he was a great cruise director but we found him totally annoying. And he was making some kind of offensive jokes during the love and marriage show, making fun of the asian couple for being chinese. I'm sure other people loved him, just our opinion.

 

Mostly we hung out on deck 12 in lounge chairs or in the solarium pool/hot tubs, or were playing poker during leisure time. We enjoyed going to Ellington's, awesome view. Vintages was very nice, but our waiter was one of those annoyingly friendly types who want to talk for half an hour, so we didn't go back after the second time b/c he said he would be there every night.:) Drinks of the day were invariably STRONG, which I guess is a good value but made them a little hard to drink.

 

One complaint: there was no good beer on tap on the ship, not even at wig and gavel. at first there was nothing but domestics, heineken, and amstel light -- on the third day they got bass. And they were out of newcastle bottles and never got any in -- disappointing for all the beer lovers.

 

Chris is in charge of the poker room, i.e. the connoisseur club, and he is a really nice guy. The room is sometimes really smoky b/c of cigars and cigarrettes, which was annoying but didn't stop us from playing. The only game is 1 - 2 no limit texas hold'em, but Chris said if you could get enough people together you could play something different.

 

FOOD/DINING: First of all, the dining room is beautiful!!!!! We enjoyed being there and our good service so much that we decided to skip Chops or Portofinos. We had Baswell and Bron for our waiters and they were wonderful, especially Bron. He always had extra lemon for our iced tea. However, the iced tea was strangely strong -- so dark it looked like coke sometimes!

 

I would rate the food a B. The Winjammer a B-, the dining room a B+, for a B average. A few things in the dining room were really good -- the mushroom pasta stands out in my memory. The first shrimp cocktail was very limp, the second was good. The lobster was only ok. All of our steaks were cooked well and were at least decent. The bread was always good. And the service was GREAT. Anyway, no one EVER left hungry. The desserts were all good too. One caveat: we had lunch in the dining room twice. The first time was great -- quick service, good food. The second time was AWFUL. The servers disappeared literally for 20 minutes at a time. We had some nice people at our table to pass the time with, but it was totally ridiculous. We got there at 12:45 and didn't get our dessert until 2:00. I think the trick is to get there right when it opens at noon, that's what we did the first time.

 

As for the Windjammer -- Breakfast: the made to order omelettes were good; the bacon was fine; the hashed browns were ok. The toast was awful cardboard type consistency. Fruit was fine. Lunch: basically what I did was make one plate of anything that looked ok. THen I tried it all, and went back to get a plate of what I liked. Usually I only liked one thing enough to eat it. Really I would not recommend it. We never ate dinner there b/c the dining room was so nice.

 

Cafe Promenade: Sandwiches were ok, except sometimes they were labeled ham and were actually bologna. However, the pizza is really terrible and they need to improve it, there is nothing else hot available late. I don't think it would be that hard to get some decent frozen pizza instead of whatever cardboard stuff they order now.

 

Anyway, overall we were satisfied, just think there is room for improvement in the food category.

 

PORTS: We liked all the ports.

 

Labadee: nice, but rocky beaches a bit unsafe for swimming. The food looked disgusting and we did not partake. But, the island/walled off Haitian beach has plenty of nice beach spots if you walk around a bit, we found plenty of shady spots. Here is a tip: when you first get off the tender, to the immediate left is a nice swimming beach with no rocks on the bottom. It will be crowded, but if you go around 2:30 (or about an hour before you have to be on the ship) it will be less crowded and then around 3:00 (half hour before you have to be on the ship) it will be deserted, at least it was for me. I got basically my own private beach while everyone stood in line to tender. Got out of the water at 3:20 and got the next to last tender, it was great!!!!

 

Ocho Rios: We went to Margaritaville and stayed there all day. For $15 you get a beach chair and umbrella, I think. Food was ok at the restaurant, of course there were a few people on teh beach trying to sell us necklaces and marijuana. :) No big deal though. If I did it again I would get a cab to a nicer bigger beach or do an excursion to the falls/dolphin cove, etc. We were on a budget and we like to sleep late so that ruled out most of the excursions for us.

 

Grand Cayman: We did the Grand Caymen snorkeling excusion, which took you to a nice coral reef and then to a shipreck to snorkel. It was fun and the boat crew were really nice, it was $38 each for about 2 hours of snorkeling, not bad. My DH had never been snorkeling before so it was extra fun for him. Didn't hit 7 mile beach but the couple we were traveling with said it was GREAT!

 

Cozumel: The port is still in sort of bad shape from Wilma, but it wasn't awful looking, they are definitely rebuilding. We went to Playa Mia/Playa Sol, it was about $63 total: $17 each way for a cab, $12 each to get in, and $5 for a beach umbrella. We were cheap and brought our own water and didn't eat anything. The beach was nice, the chairs were comfy, the water was BEAUTIFUL, and we felt safe leaving our stuff on our chairs to swim. There is also a pool and delightfully cold showers for when you get too hot. Also tons of water sports to do but we skipped all that. We were in port from 10:00-7:00, go to the beach around 1:00, and around 3:30 or so people started leaving the beach, so it was pretty empty until we left around 5:30. Cozumel was my favorite just b/c we relaxed on the nice beach all day, and b/c I like Mexico, I spent a summer there in undergraduate and even touristy Cozumel has the Mexican "feel" which I enjoyed.

 

Sad news on the ship: someone died on board, a 40 year old lady traveling with her family died of a heart attack, they called for a priest on the loudspeaker and it was eerie -- so sad!!!!

 

Internet: $.50 cents per minute on a slow connection really adds up. We thought we could get the $100 package and share it between both couples. I guess RCI caught on that folks could share the package so they got rid of it and I can tell you they are making BANK on the computer lab and people with laptop wireless connections. A few time the internet wasn't working and I spent $5 for nothing. We spent $120 total on internet, i.e., 4 hours of internet time, probably about 2 hours each for the week. Oh well, RCI knows they have a captive audience, they could probably charge more and people would still use it.

 

Sickness: Didn't notice anyone sick. But, did notice bad smells in the hallway sometimes and people who always had room service trays outside there room, so probably a few people got sick. And they were very strict about the hand sanititizer.

 

Teenagers: Random packs of them hung out in the internet area and the library and were ALWAYS there talking loudly. But it is hard to be a teenager, old enough to stay up late but not old enough to have adult type fun, so I forgive them.

 

Crew: Almost every crew member we met was very nice and helpful. One lady on the phone at guest relations was obnoxious when I had a question, and we had the problem with service at lunch. Other than that, everyone went out of there way to please us.

 

Random complaint: The ice buckets are WAY too small and were always half melted when we got to our room. I guess that is to make you want to drink from the minibar. However, room service delivered huge ice buckets quickly so it was ok.

 

Favorite spot: watching the ocean from a lounge chair on deck 12!

 

Alcohol: I snuck two bottles of the kendall jackson box wine on board in my luggage. No problems with anything, it was great to enjoy in my cabin pre and post dinner.

 

Dress: For the casual nights, DH wore jeans and a polo shirt or khakis and polo shirt. I wore khaki capris and olive capris with various tops. For formal nights, I brought one dress which I wore both nights. The dress was navy and to my horror I found that I had brought mismatched dress shoes -- one black shoe and one navy shoe!!! Luckily the dress was floor length so I could wear flip flops underneath it without them showing!:) DH wore black pants, dress shirt and tie, no jacket. We fit in fine. I didn't see anyone in shorts or tank tops on any nights.

 

Packing tips:

 

Bring clothespins -- we used them and they were great to dry things on the balcony.

 

Bring Bonine just in case -- I took one a day when I noticed the ships motion and never got the least bit sick.

 

We didn't use the power strip -- there are no plugs by the bed, which is where we would use it, DH likes to have a small fan on at night. Otherwise there were enough plugs in the desk area.

 

Hand sanitizer with moisturizer: DH scorned it for being too much like lotion but I loved it b/c my skin did not get dry. He just used the sanitizers outside the dining rooms.

 

Sunscreen and aloe vera: A MUST! You get burned so easily in the caribbean! We both got small burns and then were totally religious about the sunscreen every 2 hours.

 

Magnets/bungee cords -- unnecessary -- you don't need your balcony door open all the time. Balcony door tip: if you feel like your air conditioner isn't working, make sure that your balcony door is locked and sealed -- if not the air won't work nearly as well!

 

I am getting fatigued of this review -- post questions if you like!

 

Overall I would recommend the Mariner to anyone, the ship was unbelievably nice and beautiful with tons of places to hang out and explore. We liked our cabin and loved the hump balcony. We had a great time and would definitely cruise on the Mariner again!!!

[amyo28]

PS: I have no idea if the ship was full or not, but it did not feel crowded at all. We usually hit the pool deck around 2:00 on sea days and there was a ton of room. Elevators sometimes took a while but it was nothing horrendous, we always took the stairs down and about 1/3 of the time took them up. We only had to wait 5 or so minutes for an elevator even at the worst times.

 

Tendering was fine, sometimes took a few minutes but no big deal. DH got stuck on the top deck of one and got sunburned one time though.

 

Embarkation: Smooth and fast with the setsail pass.

 

Debarkation: we were out of our rooms by 8:00 like they asked. Our companions didn't leave theirs until 8:45, I was jealous. :( There were pastries and coffee at cafe promenade. We were Red 2, supposedly 8:00 - 8:30, got called at 9:00. Customs was a little slow but everything was fine.

 

We flew in and out of Tampa, $78 round trip fare on Southwest, so we rented a car and drove there. Everything worked out great!:)

[nikki303]

Thanks for the review. I will be on Mariner in November. I'm looking very forward to it!