This was the very first cruise my husband and I ever took. It also happened to be the very first anything my husband and I ever did as a married couple because it was our honeymoon. We got married in the midst of Hurricane Jean on Sept. 25th in Florida and were due to set sail on Sept. 26th. We actually set sail several days later because of the storm (so we had five night instead of seven) and we set sail from Miami instead of Port Canaveral. I must preface this additionally by saying that we never thought we would like cruising but we are both self proclaimed "cruise people" now because of this cruise on the Mariner of the Seas.

The embarkation ran smoothly once we were shipped from Port Canaveral to Miami by cramped bus (our bus had a broken and smelly potty), but prior to boarding the busses there was not much information or organization at the Port Canaveral terminal. It also would have been nice if RCCL had provided coffee or something for us in the morning since we going to be herded onto cramped busses for a 4-5 hour trip to Miami.

During the trip, we tried food in just about all of the places one could eat on board. The food in the Windjammer was decent and the food in the dining room was at least 3 star but the food and service in Chops was as good as and five star restaurant on land in NYC that I have ever eaten in. Read more