I am an 18 year old girl who loves to travel and really enjoyed this trip with my family. We took the 7 night cruise on the mariner of the seas from December 30 2012- January 6 2013. It was considered a holiday cruise because it was over New Years, which was really fun and enjoyable.

We embarked from Galveston Texas, which went pretty smoothly thanks to our travel agent getting us priority boarding passes (try to get these if possible). I love Galveston, but I have to admit that the terminal is way too small to function the way it should. Get there very early and be patient. People are disembarking the boat at the same time that you are pulling up to the terminal. It is confusing and took us about an hour to get through lines and to finally start walking to the boat. The number one recommendation I would make would be to make sure to grab a porter as soon as you park as this will make it so much more less confusing. It also took a very long time to park the car, It might even be worth it to park in a non terminal lot and walk if you are able to do that.

Our rooms were already ready by the time that we boarded the ship so we dropped off our bags and went off to explore the ship. Our rooms were on deck 6, right next to the elevator bank. While we thought it would be noisy, the rooms were actually amazing because of the convenience of having the elevators right there. The ship includes a promenade which is where most of the action occurs. We had early dinner, which we actually enjoyed because we were always hungry by the time 5:30 rolled around. We are a family of 5, but we were placed at a table with people we had never met before. It turned out great with us leaving with 6 new friends to keep in touch with. It was weird at first to have to share a table with random people, but don't change tables, because by the 2nd night we were great friends and even hung out every night outside of dinner. Our waiters were fabulous, which I think is probably standard on every cruise. The food was really good, but did not always have the variety that other cruises we have been on had. One complaint that I have was that the windjammer buffet had pretty limited late hours. Unlike other boats where there is 24 hour food everywhere, the windjammer closes at 9, and there is only one 24 hour place with limited choices (like sandwiches and cookies but not much more). Read more