The DW and I needed a break from the real world, she found this great short cruise (7 days is short for us)on the RCL's Mariner of the Seas. We were glad we tried RCL.

We drove from NW Florida to Orlando the evening prior and stayed at the HOJO on INternational Drive off 528. It only takes about 6 hours to get to Orlando and since I'm not on Geritol yet, the trip wasn't too tiring since traffic was light. We slept in till 9 am, got some coffee, did some last minute shopping at the grocery store across the street and headed down 528 for Port Canaveral. We left Orlando around 10am and got to port at around 11am. For those not familiar with driving from Orlando to Port Canaveral, it is a straight 4-lane highway all the way into the port. Dropped off the bags at the car luggage drop, went to the parking area, prepaid for parking, found a nice parking spot right across from the elevator and were checking in within 20 minutes. We were onboard by 1145 am and sitting down with something to eat in the Windjammer by 12. Rooms were opened at 1:00pm. For the amount of people going through it seemed to go fairly smoothly, we are platinum (we sailed on Celebrity and the credit carries to RCL) and were able to go ahead of the majority of the crowd. I supposed if we were in the long lines, slowly inching forward, the embarkation might not have faired so well.

First impressions of the Mariner and RCL, WOW, that's a big ship. The promenade is very impressive, if you never experienced RCL's ships before. The ship as a whole was very impressive and in good shape. The crew was constantly cleaning and touching things up. Read more