This is our familys fourth cruise and I must say that is was far from our best. We traveled to the Orlando area two days early and did the Disney thing with our children who are eighteen and thirteen.

On the morning of our cruise we awoke early to see on the news that the Mariner pulled into port with over 250 sick passengers. Calling all the numbers we had for RCCL we found that they were closed on Sundays and was given a local number to call. That number also had a recording to call back during normal business hours. We decided to drive our rental car to the ship just to get turned around at the port and handed a flyer stating that they were cleaning the ship and to return later that day. After discussing this with my wife we believed that after the cleaning this is probably the cleanest the ship would be since its maiden voyage.

We returned around 3:00PM and went right into the terminal. The advantages of having a suite is that we didnt have to wait in line and after getting the paperwork completed we went right onboard, about 20 minutes. We departed promptly at 5:00PM for our Western Caribbean vacation. Read more