We have sailed several times on several ships and it's hard not to compare one vs. another. I will try to list the highlights and areas where I felt there could be improvement.

We arrived in Orlando and stayed at the Doubletree Hotel in Cocoa Beach. It was a nice hotel right on the ocean. We returned our car the next day and used the car rental shuttle to get to the port.

Embarkation was great and went smoothly and quickly. We arrived at the port around 10:45 a.m. and we were on board within 30 minutes (we had priority embarkation). Our luggage arrived at our cabin around 3:00 p.m. The Mariner really did a great job with embarkation/luggage handling. We had a corner-aft cabin on Deck 7 and the balcony was absolutely wonderful. I did notice early on that some of the towels in our room were dirty when I wet them down (spots would appear or the towel would turn blue or yellow when wet). I was very careful to check to see if the wash cloth was clean before I used it after that. I know this was being wasteful, but I'm not about to wash my face with a blue or yellow wash cloth! Also, water pressure for the shower was great, but water pressure for the sink was horrible. Read more