Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas

This was my first cruise on Royal caribbean, I took the Carnival Conquest in 08 out of galvestion. First the on boarding experiance was well cordinated and it was easy to get on board the ship they actually let people bring 12 packs of water and soft drinks just not booze. Customer service was fantastic compared to carnival cruise and getting on board was easier too. rooms and cleanlyness very good. Food in the main dining room not good over cooked and over salted. Food in the windjammer ok but not good as well. Tasted like a very cheap buffet place Ryans was so much better. I ended up eating ham and chees for most of the week. Free drinks are coffee seattle best good choice, tea which is very strong, water with a salty taste, and some lemondaid too strong and milk in the morning. I have to say carnivals drinks selection and the fact you could self serve and the food was much better then Royals. On Royal you paid for the little things to get better food or drinks. Getting off for shore excusions very good and depature off the ship also very good and quick if no imigration delays. Over all if you go with royal clean ship, customer service, lots to do. If you go with carnival poor service, better food, and slower on and off the ship. Both will have your booze cruise passengers. Oh one last thing Royal really enforces the adults pool and family pool that was nice carnival it a free for all no real direction.
in the end pick what is important to you.
both offer the same excusions.
hope this helps happy cruising

It is okay. Royal Caribbean seems to be moving down stream from once being a upscale/​luxury cruise line to a mainstream Honda Accord/​Toyota Camry experience. Nothing wrong with this, but people need to be aware of the shift. The food quality has slipped a bit, and some of the staff are a bit rude… not what you once experienced with Royal Caribbean. If you want the high quality food and experience you better go with Celebrity or Costa. RC is now just a small step above Carnival.
PROS: Decent sized staterooms. Decent entertainment (the ice skating show was amazing), updated ship with flat screen TVs.
CONS: no chicken breast anywhere other than at Johnny Rockets (but you have to pay). No real cheesecake anymore, not even at «Chops», the overpriced steakhouse where they serve the same bad cuts of meat as in the main dining room, You have to check pool towels in and out, No bathrobes anymore, No 24 hour buffett– If you want food other than cookies between midnight and 6PM you have to use room service and there is a fee during these hours, noticably less staff on the ship in all areas, they try to sell you fresh squeezed orange juice while you eat breakfast, the constant feeling that you are being nickeled and dimed at every turn. Lastly, the soda club. Sounds great at first, but it is only fountain soda… they fill the glasses up all the way with ice, and the bartenders sigh and give attitude every time you try and use your «unlimited» soda benefit. It just isn’t worth the hassle.
Again, it is a nice ship and you will have a good vacation… BUT if you haven’t sailed on RC in 10 years… you will be let down. If you want to experience what RC once was, go to their premium Celebrity line. It is worth the very small increase!

Beautiful ship, Great Activities, Good Food
I have no clue where to start… the wine bar? the formal dining room, the jacuzzi’s, the big screen HD TV on the top deck with the pools, the service, the fun, or Johnny Rockets onboard? This ship has everything and recently upgraded with flat screens in the rooms, it has everything you need. The food is great, the service is fantastic… and there is even a hot dog stand so you can get hot dogs, brats, sausages and other stuff all day long! Starbucks is on board as well for those needing a cappuccino or frapuccino. The shows and crew were great! You will enjoy your trip on the Mariner of the Seas!

The back story: This was our 3^rd cruise, but first time on a Royal Caribbean ship. Some friends of ours were getting married on board and then we were all sailing off with them on their honeymoon.
Let me start off by saying, we love cruising! There is no easier vacation because you don’t have to plan anything — you can just relax and let the ship take you where you need to go and other people prepare every meal for you. It. is. awesome.
The wedding: What a mess! First of all, the weddings on cruise ships are all very cookie cutter — i.e., you can’t have special little details to make your wedding unique because they simply dont offer it. You get a plain white cake, you pick a color of flowers (no guarantees as to flower types), and you get 2 hours tops for ceremony and reception: no exceptions! With all of that said, we knew what we were getting into: no frills. But that was okay! What we didn’t expect was that the tuxes (which had to be ordered through the ship) would not be correct. And when I say not correct, I mean downright wrong. There were 8 tuxes that were ordered — 4 showed up the day of the wedding. 3 of these 4 were the wrong sizes. Finding the tailor on the ship proved to be interesting… this caused the wedding to start 30 minutes late (which, we only had 2 hours total anyway). There were numerous other details (the photographer took a total of 150 pictures at the whole wedding, they couple was promised 2 wedding corrdinators and they only had one, etc.), but I’ll stop here.
The cruise: Our first two cruises were on Carnival ships and we heard from everyone that Carnival was nothing compared to Royal Caribbean — that everything on Royal Caribbean was so much better, so we had high expectations. The cruise was ho-​hum.
Food: The dinners are what we always look forward to because everyone gets to sit down together (we had a group of 30 of us) and eat some good food. That was not always the case on this cruise. The food was okay, but nothing spectacular. There were a couple nights where we got the menu and there was absolutely nothing on there that we wanted. Our waiter was really awesome though, so he made dinners pretty good.
Room: Our room was okay, it was a bit outdated, but the ship was getting dry-​docked for a full remodel after our cruise was over, so I guess theyre working on that. Our stateroom attendant was not as good as what we’ve had in the past. He didn’t know our names, and he didn’t leave us a towel animal every night (we got 4 during the whole 7-​night cruise). On our past cruises, the attendant knew our names, our schedules, what we liked to do on the ship, and overall just really tried to get to know us. And we got a different towel animal every night. Our friends who were on their honeymoon on this cruise had to actually ask their attendant for towel animals because they hadn’t gotten any by the 3^rd night and it was their honeymoon!
Scheduled Events: The events were okay. Some nights they were good (the magic act, the singing, etc) and some nights not so good. There was one night where there was a game played with the people on the ship where the cruise director would say bring me _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​and we as the audience would have to come up with it. The items requested got more and more risqué as the game progressed, like «An innapropriately placed tattoo» or «12 bras» and I saw far more skin than I wanted to see that night. It could have been just a fun game, but it was turned into a more rated R version that I wasn’t expecting, and frankly, didn’t like.
Destinations: Cozumel, Honduras, Belize. These places were all awesome! Next time I will just take a different cruise to get there.

WOW! What a cruise! First class all the way! Can’t wait to go again! The ship, the crew, the service, the entertainment, the food… everything was absolutely wonderful. Seven days was NOT enough.
We left port on a Sunday and headed to Cozumel, Mexico where we arrived on a Tuesday. I’d never been to Cozumel and I don’t intend on ever going back there as next time we will stay on the ship and enjoy the day on the deck (s). Cozumel is just one big tourist trap unless you enjoy haggling souvenirs and purchasing medications at great savings — stay away from there.
The next day we were in Great Britain’s Georgetown, Grand Cayman with the beautiful blue water. Visited «Hell» an interesting place where there’s this large piece of property that is nothing but black lava surrounded by «jungle». Ate lunch at Breezes where the burgers were very, very expensive and on par with «no big deal». The island’s main industry is «banking» with tourism a close second. Next time, we’ll stay on the ship and enjoy the day on the deck (s).
Then came Falmouth, Jamaica. We took a gorgeous tour through the «jungle» to the historical New Hope Sugar Plantation that is a must see! There we got to taste the famous «Jerk Chicken» for lunch.
From Jamaica, the ship headed back to Galveston, Texas for two days in the calm December ocean.
Each night during the cruise, we attended the ship’s entertainment productions. They were excellent! We especially liked «The Unexpected Boys» who did «Oh, What A Night» which is a musical tribute Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Be sure and check out their website:
The «ice capades» was a «wow» factor, too! The ship’s cruise director, Paul Ritter did a fabulous job!
This was my first cruise and it’s now been three weeks since we docked… I still have sensory overload. It’s surreal. At first, I really didn’t know if I’d like it or not… now I can’t wait to book the next one! One BIG thing I would do different for next time is to get a cabin that has a balcony where you can lounge outside at any time day or night and watch the ocean and the sky drift by.

This was my first cruise, so I had no idea as to what to expect. This was a gift for getting through grad school somewhat intact. I went on the cruise with my mother, who was footing the bill.
I will say first off that the service that Royal Caribbean provided was top-​notch. The ship was incredible and someday I will cruise again, probably. However, there were some glaring flaws that I simply cannot overlook, some of them having to do with safety.
First, the pros:
The ship was simply incredible, but I have nothing to compare it to. The dining room and the promenade were spectacular.
The state rooms were spectacular, ours did not feel cramped at all.
The design of the ship was such that you barely noticed there were about 4000 other people on board.
Food was always available.
Our dining room waiter was incredible.
The gym was always available and the variety of equipment on board was really wonderful.
The staff was almost always friendly.
I had heard that drinks of cruise ships were watered down. That is definitely NOT the case on the RC! I saw a bartender pour a drink of the day, and I counted a 16 second pour!
Now the cons:
We had to wait nearly 3 hours (some of it in the wind, cold AND sun!) to board the ship. We got there early to board, too. When we got there, we couldn’t find our room, but were ushered onto deck four and told to stand there and weren’t told why. The staff lined more and more people up while we stand there in neat little rows (after standing for the past three hours). We stood there for another 45 minutes and weren’t allowed to leave. (Did I mention we had all our carry-​ons with us? And that the people around us are inches away from us? One man, about a foot taller than me kept bumping my head. Welcome aboard.) We had to stay there to do the muster drill. So even though we were there early, we missed the welcoming party-​no free drink for us.
I understand they have to make their money, but there should have been a few, lower priced wine selections that weren’t Beringer’s.
Our state room was great, but smelled of sewage. Fortunately, my mother packed a plug in air freshener, but you could smell it in the hallway.
After all I had heard about the great food on cruises, I was expecting gourmet meals at dinner. They were simply ok. I guess when you have to make food to please everyone, you please no one.
Sitting with people you don’t know every night is cool at first, but gets old very quick. We were sitting with a couple of very nice ladies and another group of ladies. The other ladies didn’t show up the last night so they wouldn’t have to tip the waiter for the past week. So they sucked.
The tipping is very confusing. We pre-​tipped when we paid for our room and excursion. We couldn’t remember how much was tipped, but we wanted to give our waiter extra because he was that good. Does he know that we already tipped? They give you a sticker or something to hand him, but it is extremely confusing.
Aaand on the subject of tipping; when you order a drink, a 15% gratuity is automatically added. Since 20% is customary, you either have to do some weird math, leave maybe a dollar on top of that, or just don’t tip more. Awkward.
Our state room attendant called me fat, sort of. I am not a small woman, but I am not obese either. So when I said something to the state room attendant apologizing because I am the messy one (not my mom) and she replies, «You’re not fat,» it doesn’t make me enjoy the food more.
Our excursion to Jamaica was cut short by rain. That’s not their fault, but they should have had a backup plan in case of rain. The guide didn’t know what to do. This port if only a couple of months old so that may get fixed.
The huge safety issue. My tablemates joked about enjoying the service now because on disembarkment day, they will have «forgotten all about you.» They were not exaggerating! They allow passengers off by deck. Since we were on the third deck, we would be almost last to leave. We would not be able to leave until 11:30. We had places to be, so waiting around for four hours was a deal breaker. The way around this is; you can leave at 7:00 am, but you have to carry your own stuff… and all of it without help. We chose that route, and so did everyone else apparently. We go to the floor that they told us to wait at and when we got off the elevator, it was just a sea of people, with all their luggage, waiting. There was barely any room to exit the elevator. The theater that we were supposed to wait in was locked. We waited from 20 – 30 minutes while more and more people exited the elevators. Finally someone called Royal Caribbean and told them about the situation, but prior to that, it was a bit scary. There were several people in wheelchairs and the entire thing was a massive fire hazard. I really couldn’t believe this wasn’t the first time RC had done this. It was that unprofessional.
Apparently, I have reached the Unilocal word count limi