My first cruise was aboard the Carnival Imagination. A 4-nighter with stops in Key West and Cozumel, the Imagination was a perfect introduction to cruising - just long enough to get a feel for the cruising lifestyle. I enjoyed the cruise, had no complaints but felt that the Carnival line was geared to a younger crowd and those with families. Despite Royal Caribbean's reputation as a mass-market, family-oriented cruiseline; I suspected that the overall ambience of Royal Caribbean would be more mature and felt that we would likely encounter fewer children. So when I returned from my cruise aboard Imagination, I began working on my husband to try cruising. I was sure that I could sell him on the Royal Caribbean brand. He was sure that he would never set foot on a cruise ship.

After our first cruise together aboard Sovereign of the Seas in February 2006, my husband and I immediately began planning our next cruise with Royal Caribbean. And when I say immediately, I mean, as soon as we returned home from Sovereign I was up at the local AAA office looking for the brochure. We met a couple aboard Sovereign and planned to cruise together next time around. DH insisted that 4 nights was not long enough so we decided that the next one would be a 7 nighter. All year long, we researched and debated which RC cruise to take next. We settled on Mariner for the following reasons: itinerary, ship's amenities, and port of departure.

In two sailings out of Port Canaveral, we have found it to be hassle-free. In both cases, we have completed the online check-in through Royal Caribbean's website, printed the Set Sail Pass, and we were on our way. We like to arrive early to the pier and get on the ship as soon as possible. For this year's Mariner cruise, we arrived at the pier around 10:30 and did not wait in any lines. We were required to sign a Wellness form indicating that we had not been ill recently. After following the Norovirus outbreaks on CruiseCritic.com, I was glad to see Royal Caribbean taking steps to insure a healthy cruise for all of us. We walked through the security and x-ray points of the terminal and literally walked up to an available representative to check-in. He scanned the barcode on our SetSail Pass, verified our passports, swiped our credit card, handed us our SeaPass cards and we were done. The process took maybe 30 minutes from the time the boys dropped us girls off with the luggage while they parked the car to the time where we had SeaPass in hand. They were not allowing anyone to board yet so we were directed to a waiting area until boarding time which started around 11:30am. While waiting to board, they made an announcement that we would not be stopping at Coco Cay due to weather but instead we would be stopping in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We were disappointed not to be making the Coco Cay stop but since none of us had ever been to San Juan, we looked forward to hitting a port none of us had seen. Read more