Mariner of the Seas Review
Best Vacation Ever! First Time Cruiser!
Rating by category
Additional details
Before I report there are a few things that don't matter because of the changes that will be made during the ship going to dry dock as soon as we got off. We had a question and answer with the captain and cruise director about what was going to change. First, all of the carpet will be changed. All the wood on the ship will be sanded and re-stained. They will not paint everything, just the things that need it. At the elevators there are diagrams of the ship describing what is located on all of the floors. They will be taken down and be replaced with large interactive screens where you can put in your room number or another location in and it will show you exactly how to get there. One thing I didn't like about the ship was that there was wireless in only certain parts of the ship and wasn't in the staterooms. Now there will be wireless all around the ship and in every room. The restaurant Portofino will be removed and a new Italian restaurant will take its place. Other than the Wig and Gavel bar in the Promenade every shop will be demolished and redone. There will be a babysitting place for 6 months to 3 year olds. They are also adding a huge TV screen on the deck for movies and sports. The deck is getting completely torn apart and redone. Even the pools were going to get redone. The captain said that by law a cruise ship has to dry dock every certain number of years to get it checked out by authorities and since they have to do that they might as well get her updated.
About the ship
The ship didn't look like it needed to be updated at all. It was beautiful and has been well maintained over the years. I never saw a worn carpet or anything. Being a designer I really loved how they decorated the entire ship. Since they put in an ice skating rink in the middle, I thought it was strange you had to go to the 3rd, 4th and 5th floor to change elevators to get to certain things. You couldn't just walk across the ship. Some places were hard to find like the restaurant Johnny Rockets. Since no one knew where it was it was barely used. We went there one night and there were never more than 6 people in there at one time. All in all it was easy to maneuver around the ship. One thing I heard about has completely changed. It used to be rude to move a towel on a chair on the deck around the pool that someone had put on there to reserve a seat. Now they added signs telling everyone that you cannot reserve a seat. So now it has turned around 100% and it is now rude to reserve a seat. That I like.
Cabin Review
Superior Oceanview Stateroom with Balcony
Our stateroom was perfect for us. It had plenty of room and the most important thing was the balcony. For us it was worth every penny. I wouldn't travel on Royal Caribbean if they didn't allow smoking on the baloneys. Every morning except the last day the sun rose on our side and every day we got up before dawn to have coffee and cigs watching the sun come up. The only down side about the room was the refrigerator. We had the stateroom attendant take all of the stuff out so we could put our own stuff in. When I checked I noticed it wasn't cold inside. I called maintenance and they came out and it still wasn't cold and after the third time they said it wasn't broken but supposed to be around 50 degrees. That didn't make sense to me. I couldn't even keep milk in there and not have it go bad. So after that I got 4 ice buckets and kept everything in there and the stateroom attendant kept them full of ice. Other than that one little thing I don't think I could have had a better room. The only problem is if I take another cruise I have to get a balcony again. One thing I really wish they had had was a menu of all the restaurants on the TV (on Royal Caribbean TV) so you could decide what you wanted to eat that night without going to every restaurant every day to see what they were serving. The volume button for controlling ship announcements in the stateroom did not work, so we were constantly sticking our head out the door to hear what was being said.