Review Mariner of the Seas Western 11/7/04 Part One

[Adventure Girl]

This will probably be a long one.....

 

I sailed on the Mariner of the Seas Western route during the week of November 7 -14, 2004. There was a total of 7 women in my group. This was our 2nd annual "Girl's Getaway". We had a blast.

 

Our trip began on Friday November 5th when we all flew to Florida. We rented a 12-passenger van from Budget at the Orlando airport and turned it in on Sunday in Port Canaveral. We stayed for two nights at the Ron Jon Cape Caribe Resort in Cape Canaveral. We had a 2-bedroom lock out room. (That is when they take a 1 bedroom and a studio room and open the door between the two to make it a 2- bedroom unit). The unit was beautiful. One bedroom had a king size bed, a sitting area with a pull out sofa, kitchenette, bathroom with shower and whirlpool tub. The second bedroom had two double beds and bathroom w/shower. The unit had a full kitchen, washer/dryer, large living room, large balcony with a view of the pool/water park and the ocean. We were able to see several ships leaving port on Friday and Saturday. The ships sailed right past our balcony. It was wonderful.

 

The grounds, pools, amenities, service, etc. as Ron Jon Cape Caribe was fantastic. We had a great, great time there. We had dinner the first night at the on-site restaurant. It was o.k. Not gourmet, but good enough to be able to avoid drinking and driving. The second night we had dinner at Grills which is a restaurant near the port. Very lively, long wait for a table, but a lot of fun. We thought the food there was just o.k. Actually, after waiting for 1 1/2 hours for our table, and having a couple of drinks, none of us were really hungry. Back at the resort we held a little cruise party...exchanging matching t-shirts, matching tote bags filled with lotions and potions, photo albums, address books, pens, writing paper, etc. It looked like Christmas morning in our condo.

 

On Sunday morning we returned our rental car and arrived at the ship around 12:30 pm. We had two cabins for the 7 of us. Two girls were in a D2 balcony cabin and 5 of us were in the Royal Family Suite. Even though we had priority boarding with the suite, there were no lines, no waiting to board the ship. We waltzed right through check-in and were on board by 12:45 pm. Cabins were not ready until 1 pm so we headed to the pool deck to hang out until 1 pm. A couple of the girls went to the Windjammer to get food, and they simply fixed a plate and brought it out to the pool deck. Too crowded in the Windjammer itself.

 

At 1 pm we went to check out our cabins. The Royal Family Suite was fantastic. We were on deck 8 aft. The cabin had two bedrooms, two full baths, walk-in closet, living room, dining space, and 209 sq ft balcony. The cabin had 2 televisions and a cd player with surround sound speakers hanging from the ceiling. We absolutely loved the cabin. (we will never be able to go back to inside or standard balcony again). Much to our surprise, all of our luggage was delivered to the cabin by 1:30 pm. We were still in the cabin screaming our heads off in delight and unpacking our carry-ons when the luggage was delivered. I've never received luggage that quickly. So, we immediately unpacked and then headed back to the pool deck for fun. At 3 pm we met up with all of our cruise critic friends at the Sky Bar. It was wonderful to finally meet all of the fabulous people that I had been chatting with for the past 8 months. We had a wonderful, active thread going on the roll calls and meeting everyone in person was like a family reunion. (I miss you guys!).

 

Sail away at 5 pm was great. Band and line dancing on the pool deck. We had the late seating for dinner. We were in the Top Hats and Tails dining room on deck 4. Table 409. Our waiter was Orhan from Turkey. Assistant waiter was Peter from Philippines. Head waiter was Merrick from India. Dining room bar server was Elena from Philippines. They were all fantastic the entire week.

We went to the welcome aboard show and saw our favorite Cruise Director, Kirk Detweiller. (He was the CD when we sailed on the Adventure last October). He has the same routine as he did last year...."how you doin?" "Fabulous, how you doin?" But, we enjoyed the show. After dinner we hit the Dragon's Lair disco. (The place we spent every night during the week). The bartenders at the Dragon's Lair were Nikolay from Bulgaria and Nhell from Panama. They were very attentive, accommodating, professional, courteous, funny, and one of the highlights of our trip.

 

Monday: Full day at Sea. Today we got up early and did the "walk a mile" for ship shape dollar on deck 12 at 8:30 a.m. Then breakfast and then up to the pool deck for a day of lounging.

 

I have to say that of all the Royal Caribbean ships that I have done, I thought the food in the Windjammer and Jade on Mariner was the best that I have ever had. (I've sailed Monarch, Adventure, Voyager). I LOVED Jade. I thought the atmosphere when you first enter Jade was great, and the food at Jade was fantastic. I mainly ate at Jade, but occassionally grabbed salads and wraps from Windjammer. We had breakfast and lunch everyday at Jade/Windjammer. We also went to Windjammer at 5 pm for nachos, egg rolls, mac & cheese, etc. to tide us over until 8:30 pm dinner. (Yes, I gained 8 lbs. on this cruise.....this is the first cruise, out of the 6 I've taken that I actually gained weight. I have never gained weight on a cruise before).

 

Monday night was formal night. I went to the salon and had my hair washed and straightened, ($50 plus tip). We all went to the Captain's champagne party and met Captain Johnny. Later that night we happened to stumble across the Schooner Bar on the way to Dragon's Lair and I'm so glad that we did. Piano Man--Matt Yee was playing. I had read a lot about him on these boards but never thought it would be something I would be interested in. WE LOVED HIM. He is not to be missed. I sang so much and so loud that my voice was hoarse by the end of the night. It was a riot.

 

Tuesday = Labadee. Having never gone to Labadee before, I was not sure what to expect. We got up and did the "walk-a-mile" in the morning and then changed and got a tender around 10 am We did not do our research before leaving the ship (maps of Labadee were included with the daily compass), so we didn't know where we wanted to go. We stopped and dropped at the first beach we came to off of the tender. (Big mistake). The beach was crowded, loud, and all incoming passengers were marching right past us. So, after about 30 min three of us ventured out and discovered the "tram" and rode it around the entire island, picked the beach we wanted and then went back for the others. We ended up parking ourselves at Dragon's Rock beach. Very remote, quiet, not populated and with a great view of the ship. There we had a great lunch, ran into a few of our cruise critic friends, made some new friends who ended up hanging with us throughout the week, and had a lot of fun with the bartender there, Samuel from St. Vincent. At 2pm we had tickets to the water park so we headed over there. I will tell you only two things about our experience at the water park....the youngest in our group was the only one to make it up and down the ice bergs. I made it up onto the ice berg....climbed 1/2 way up, and then lost my grip and fell into the water landing directly on top of a 7 year old boy. So, if you do the water park...don't go near the iceberg until the person ahead of you is completely up and over. (I also walked away with several bruises and in need of two bandages!)

 

If I recall correctly, tonight's events were the Quest and Rockin thru the Decades party in Studio B. We all participated in Quest and I really liked the way they do it now. On other cruises I've taken, in order to play Quest you had to gather a team of 6. On this cruise, they selected 15 team leaders and then anyone sitting in the audience behind the team leader were part of the team. This was absolutely perfect. We were seated in the first row and we were able to help out with several of the requested items and our team won the game. (Go team 15!). Again, a great way to meet people.....throughout the rest of the week I kept running into people who recognized me from participating in Quest and they would stop and talk about it. After Quest we stayed for the Rockin thru the Decades dance party, (which we love), and then eventually made our way down to Dragon's Lair.

[Bunti]

Great review, now to part two.

[Adventure Girl]

Thanks Bunti....nice to hear from you. Check out my photos...I sent you an email through our yahoo group.

[Adventure Girl]

Here is the link to my photos if anyone is interested.

 

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

[Bunti]

Kim, we did book the same suite you did!!