Our planning for this cruise actually began last year when we sailed on the Mariners sister ship the Navigator of the Seas. My wife and I were planning on visiting her family and we were looking for an activity to rest off our jet lag for the long trip I mentioned that Royal Caribbean offer s cruises from Singapore to a variety of southeast Asian ports of call so we stopped by at the future cruise desk and the cruise sales manager found a four day cruise to Malaysia and Thailand bur the daters would not work with our planned travel dates so we did not book while on the Navigator. When we returned home and we had decided on our final travel dates we went on line to Royal Caribbean’s web site and found this cruise and booked it. Royal Caribbean’s web site includes a disclaimer that the cruise has been sold exclusively to the Asian market that that there would be some localization to the cruise. Since we were traveling halfway around the world for this vacation we decided to spend a couple of days in Singapore so we left our home in Maryland very early on the Morning of December 15 and arrived in Singapore very early on the Morning of December 18.

After spending a couple of days seeing the sites, visiting with some of my wife’s friends and catching up on our sleep. We checked out of our hotel on the Morning of December 20th at 10:30 AM we arrived at the pier at 10:45 AM and check in was under way after leaving our luggage with the porters we went through security, health screening again we had to answer a few questions about whether we had any of the symptoms of the norovirus. Since we were gold we had our own dedicated check in line and after getting our welcome aboard photo and going through passport control we found ourselves onboard and after surrendering our passport which was done to make it easier for the ship to clear customs and immigration at our port call in Malaysia.

Since the layout of the Mariner of the Seas was the same as on the Navigator we were able to find our way to the aft of the ship and to where our cabin was located but we were advised that our cabin would not be ready until after 1:00 PM so we made our way to Windjammer where we arrived at about 11:45 am for lunch. We found the food section to be a combination of Western and Asian foods. Around 12:30 PM an announcement was made to share your table or if you were not eating lunch to leave the Windjammer so my wife and I decided to take a walk. After leaving the Windjammer we were talking to one of the waiters and we found out the ship was sailing with a full load of passengers. We also noticed a Wall of awards welcoming the Mariner form ports going from the US to Europe to Asia as the ship was positioned by way of Europe and Eastern Asia. Many of the sings are in English, Chinese and Korean. While others were in just Chinese. Also throughout the ship by the elevators and stairs were large sign boards called wayfinders which were interactive and included the menus of all of the restaurants, the cruise compass schedule of activities and how to locate the nearest rest room and even your cabin. We decided to check out the royal promenade this where there were several changes were made to the Mariner to accommodate the Asian preferences. Two of the bar areas were converted to shops selling high end watches and sunglasses along with liquor and cigarettes. Since this cruise was stopping in Malaysia neither liquor or cigarettes were available. Read more