As a UK resident I was expecting the same attention to detail that UK Lines provide at Christmas, but sadly the Royal Caribbean Mariner of the seas treated Christmas in a very low key way.Like the splendour of the seas the Mariner had wonderful public spaces and much poorer cabins. Cigarette burns on the basin in the (non-smoking) cabin bathroom, patches of rough putty to cover holes on the verandah, tiny bathroom cabinets showing water damage and what appears to be years of hard use. Water from the verandahs above ran down a pipe and spilled onto our verandah, in fairly large quantities and from the stains, had been doing so for some time.
Waiter service at our table and in bars was generally excellent and usually polite and friendly. Customer service at the desk was much more varied, with staff who seemed to have perfected a fawlty towers fob-off to perfection, to a few wonderful people who really put themselves out to help.
Royal Caribbean updated their site to invite passengers to bring a couple of bottles of champagne or wine for the christmas celebrations for use in their cabins:- beware - if you take them up on this, as they scan the suitcase (if you fly in from the UK your champagne will be in your suitcase, not hand luggage), and impound the suitcase till well after both dinner sittings. They leave a small note on your bed to tell you there is a "problem" with your case and you have to go to a central area to deal with this. When you go there they ask you to open the case, even though the scan operator says she can see the bottles in the bag are champagne shaped. You are then told to take your own cases up to your deck - they dont delver them. If our elderly parents (one of whom had wheelchair assistance to board) had been travelling on their own, they could not have collected their case- fortunately my husband was there to handle their bags.
cabin 6260
The bathrooms on mariner and splendour of the seas were minute - they have the smallest showers known to man. We have cruised on a number of cruise lines and these are the smallest.
There is no light in the closet (wardrobe) and it is not really adequate for the clothes of 2 people for a week, unless you have only shelf items. Something was done every day at 5.30am which sounded like knocking on the door. The first morning, I opened the door, but there was no one there, so I dont know what caused the noise, but if you have this cabin be prepared for an early start.
The verandah chairs are metal with plastic strappings - very cheap and most uncomfortable. They are not recliners, just chairs.