My husband and I (age 39) were traveling with our kids (14, 11, 9 and 6) as well as both sets of parents. Between the three couples we had sailed on over 30 cruises. For my husband and I this was our eight cruise...we had previously sailed Celebrity, Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Princess and Disney. Our parents have also sailed Holland America and Star Clipper. We choose the Mariner because we were traveling with our children and we felt this was the best option outside of Disney. This was the kids third cruise (they had sailed the Disney Magic and the Disney Wonder with us).

Our itinerary for our cruise was Labadee, Ocho Rios, Grand Cayman and Cozumel.

We flew into Tampa the day before the cruise, rented a car and drove to Orlando (a little over an hour drive) where we stayed at the Nickelodeon Family Suites. Our kids loved the pools and water slides and the activities. We thought it was fun for the kids but never for more than one night. It was very loud and the food at the restaurant was terrible (which means it was perfect for the kids!). Read more