This review is of the Seven Seas Mariner cruise from Nice, France to Rome (Civitavecchia) Italy, September 15 to 22, 2002. For convenience of the reader, this review is divided into topics of PRE CRUISE ACTIVITIES, SHIP DESCRIPTION, brief ITINERARY comments, descriptions of our POST CRUISE ACTIVITIES in Rome, and some brief FINAL COMMENTS; all to allow the reader to scroll to the topics of interest.

PRE CRUISE ACTIVITIES Air travel for my wife and I was booked through Radisson. We had taken advantage of Radisson's sale on overseas business class seating and were glad we did. We left Oklahoma City on American Airlines mid morning on the 14th, and after the mandatory "hub stop" in Dallas, proceeded to JFK airport in New York to board a Delta flight to Nice. If you aren't familiar with JFK, it is an old "dinosaur" of an airport where little information or assistance is provided. We could find no signs or any indication of how to get to the Delta Terminal. When we asked people who worked in the airport how to get to Delta, they spoke to us in some language that had to be from outer space. Luckily, we found the Port Authority Police, and they took us to the proper terminal. With their kind help, we were able to find our gate in time, along with the many other guests on this cruise who were booked on this Delta flight. Unfortunately, our luggage, and that of many other guests, was not so lucky. It did not get on the plane to Nice, which we almost expected due our difficulties at JFK. The overnight flight to Nice was smooth and uneventful, and a great time to sleep in those nice business class seats. When we arrived in Nice about 9:00 AM we were greeted by very helpful Radisson representatives, who helped the many of us without luggage fill out the forms necessary to prompt a search. After we filled out our forms, we found out that many other Radisson guests had been routed with a plane change in Paris, where much of THEIR luggage had been detained by an impromptu baggage strike! The Radisson personnel certainly had their work cut out for them as to this luggage problem, and through their hard work were able, I believe, to get everyone's luggage to them on the ship by the next day. But while Radisson personnel were handling this higher priority problem, the matter of managing the hospitality room at the West End Hotel in Nice was necessarily "put on the back burner". As a result, when we arrived at this hospitality room, only large crumbs of what had once been breakfast remained. Not even any coffee! The food was not voluntarily replaced by the hotel staff (not an unusual event in Europe, I might add), and the Radisson personnel were engaged elsewhere in the more important task of chasing lost luggage, and weren't present to direct hotel staff. It didn't matter much to us, because we had already had breakfast on the plane. Considering the efficiency of Radisson staff in taking care of the more important luggage problem, the lack of food was a small problem at most, and I was ready for a drink anyway to take some of the edge off the worries about our lost luggage.

SHIP DESCRIPTION As usual for Radisson, this ship was in perfect condition, with no signs of wear or deferred maintenance anywhere. She is actually a fairly large ship. Imagine, if you will, a ship of the size the would be set up for 1200 to 1700 guests on the "mass market" lines, but it is instead set up for only 700 guests. We were in cabin 735-in the "cheap seats". Nonetheless, the cabin was a 300 sq. ft suite with a walk in closet, separate living room and balcony. All the rooms on all the floors were the same, until you got to the large suites. It just didn't make much sense to us to pay more for exactly the same room on a higher deck. The layout of the ship was easy to navigate, and lines and crowds were nowhere to be found. There is a much discussed problem with headroom in the showers in the suites, which are in the tubs. Taller guests complain of bumping their heads on the ceiling while showering. I brought along a carpenter's tape to quantify this problem, to help prospective guests know if they are too tall for the showers or not. Within the living and sleeping areas of the suite, the ceiling is 6'11" high. In the marble bathroom, the floor is raised another 5", giving 6'6" headroom. Then, the floor of the bath tub is raised another 5", giving 6'1" of headroom in the showering area. If you are well under 6'1" as we are, there is no problem. If you are over this height this is something to consider in your ship selection. The shower head could be taken off and moved around, so I assume this is how the taller passengers manage to shower. This was our second favorite suite at sea, second only to that on the Navigator which has a separate shower stall with headroom of about 6' 6". Otherwise, there were three self service laundries onboard, each with a pair of washers and dryers, soap, an iron and ironing board. We found these most handy at the end of the cruise as we prepared for our stay in Rome. Read more