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When I was preparing for our Mariner Mexican Riviera cruise, I loved reading reports of those who recently returned from their cruise. We got off the Mariner yesterday, and here are the highlights for me.
Embarking and disembarking. We flew into LA on Thursday night for my wife’s high school reunion in nearby Glendale. After brunching with friends on Sunday morning we headed to the ship. We arrived at the pier at 12:30 PM. A porter immediately took our bags, and we headed through the embarking process. We are Platinum members so we got into a little faster line, which went very smoothly. We were on the ship by 12:50. Disembarking was just as easy. We left the ship at 8:35 and headed to customs. Since we had signed up for the Luggage Valet program, we did not have to hunt for our luggage. We stood in line for about five minutes waiting to get through customs and then found our bus (arranged by Royal Caribbean) to take us to LAX. We were at the airport by 9:45. By the way, our luggage showed up in Omaha when we returned. The Luggage Valet program is well worth it!!! Just put your luggage out the night before and not have to touch it again until you arrive at home. Not only that, since they print out your boarding pass, you go straight to the gate and do not have to stand in line with all the other return cruisers at the ticket counter.
My Time Dining. We signed up for MTD to try it and to see if we liked it. We ate in the main dining room four out of the seven nights. Twice we ate in the same section with the same wait staff, the other two times we had different wait staff. All three set of servers were fantastic. No complaints there, and they all addressed us by name right from the get-go. Apparently, their system is such that they pass along your name to your servers as they seat you, so the server addressed us by name throughout the meal. It was a nice, an intimate touch. We had a standing seating time for two at 6:30 and changed it one night to 6:00 so that we could dine with another cruise critic couple. We will probably choose this again. Right now a portion of the fifth floor dining area is set aside for my time diners.
Pool Area. With three sea days we anticipated difficulty in getting a seat by the pool. No problem. The $20 deposit system and the deck patrol folk have made a dent in the chair hog coalition. I’m sure the CHC will find a way around the system after they adapt, but for us it was delightful to go out by the pool for a couple hours mid-morning or early afternoon and not have to worry about finding a lounge chair.
Cruise Director and Captain. For me, cruise directors and captains don’t usually stand out on a cruise. They just blend in with the rest of the ship’s activities. Granted, we have not been on that many cruises. This was our seventh cruise, but these two individuals added zest to our cruising experience. Both had great senses of humor, and we didn’t want to miss what they had to say. Captain Johnny will be on the ship, except for vacation breaks, until he takes over the Allure sometime next year. Cruise Director Dave Chapman told us he rotates a bit, but will be on the Mariner for a couple more months. We tuned into Dave’s Morning Show everyday and laughed out loud a number of times at his antics. Captain Johnny’s “fortune cookie” message of the day put a smile our our face. These two guys are sensational.
Excursion. We have been to Cabo before and wanted to check out a particular property in Mazatlan, so we did not book excursions in those two ports. We just headed out on our own, but the excursion in Puerto Vallarta was one of the top five we have ever taken on a cruise ship. It was titled “Mexican Cooking Experience” and it was delightful. We went away from the port into the countryside where we stopped at a small, modest village, complete with horses in the streets. We stopped at a “taco factory” to get “masa” (the dough for making tortillas). I put the “taco factory” in quotes because the factory looks more like a converted store front, very small but the locals go there to get their tortillas. We then headed to an outdoor restaurant where we tried our hand at making salsas, chili rellenos, and hand made our own tortillas from the “masa.” Along the way we were giving two adult beverages. I loved it because we got a sense of life away from the port, and also learned how to make some killer salsa. I can’t imagine buying “store bought” salsa any more!!!! It was that easy to make, and tasted wonderful.
Minor Negative #1. I know I’m going to get hammered on this one, but it was the whiners at the Crown and Anchor gathering. We get it. The benefits have changed. Move on. We only went to the first return cruisers gathering. We decided not to go to another because we didn’t want to be around the negativity.
Minor Negative #2. The sound system at the cruise critic “Meet and Mingle” up in Ellington’s was awful. We could hardly hear a thing, and my hearing is pretty good. If you want to meet people at the meet and mingle, then you need to “meet and mingle.” We had 150 folk signed up for ours. I would say around 100 were there.
If you have any other questions about the cruise or the ship, I will attempt to answer. I hope you enjoy your upcoming cruise as much as we did.
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