We have always wanted to try a Promenade room, and being that this was a low budget cruise, they all are, but be finally tried it and stuck with it;

Getting to the just of this trip. We booked a 7 night cruise to the Mexican Riviera but the Swine Flu halted that one. RCCL was actually better to us than the cruises before and after us. They allowed us to cancel without penalty, or take a $250 OBC + a $250 FCC on our next Mex Riv cruise. Unfortunately for RCCL, they had to drop the room prices so drastically by giving Senior or Residency rates that we actually were above to save more than $500 by asking for a new rate. We already had a large OBC so we were in good shape. Packing was our only problem. Gone were the shorts and on came the sweaters.

We love the Mariner and this trip was no different. We were lucky enough to have Captain Johnny and Cruise Director Ken Rush on this cruise. Although the weather was cold the first 5 days, we still had a great time doing all the indoor things with the many friends we had made through the Mix and Mingle group we chatted with on the CC boards. Our group did a cabin crawl, a pub crawl along with a poker run, we had a pre boarding party at a nice land Restaurant in LA, we had a "get leid" party in Schooner's before the Muster and a nice Sail away party at the Sky Bar. We also had one great "Slot Pull" that had half the casino rooting for us. We doubled our money - that's $9 the hard way. Read more