Mariner of the Seas Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,332 reviews

Always great, but cutbacks are obvious

Review for the Mexican Riviera Cruise on Mariner of the Seas
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lglancy
First Time Cruiser • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Sep 2009
Cabin: Interior Stateroom

We are a 36 year old married couple cruising without our 3 year old daughter, on our 6th cruise, the 5th with RC (one other on Carnival.) We cruised on the 9/20/09 sailing on the Mariner from San Pedro. It is our second time on this ship. We love this class of ship due mainly to the basketball court and wealth of activities. We arrived at LAX the day before our cruise and had booked a Supershuttle ( about $35 using coupon code UYR59 on supershuttle.com for a $3 discount on each leg)to take us to Hollywood for one night. We stayed at the Days Inn Hollywood, which was just okay, but a great location for seeing all there is to see in Hollywood. It was worth it just to try In N Out Burger! We left the hotel around 10:00am using Shuppershuttle ($60) for an arrival around 11:30am at the pier. Embarkation was the easiest we have ever had, with absolutely no lines at all, and we walked right on the ship. The only problem was finding a porter willing to take our bags (and our tip!) We knew from cruisecritic to find a porter and get luggage tags to avoid waiting in the long line. That was great advice, as the line for tags was very long, but there were only about 3 porters working the entire area, and they were both overworked and in no hurry to assist. It took probably 15 minutes of wandering up and down the sidewalk begging a porter to take our bags before we got one who had an empty enough cart to help. After that, we walked to the far left as you face the building and went right in.

Muster drill is much simpler now that there are no lifejackets involved.

We were unimpressed with the MDR menu for the first night (menus that are circulating these boards are correct) so we had made online reservations for Chops. Chops was excellent! I am not a big believer in paying for something twice, and I feel that's what you are doing in the specialty restaurants, but we decided to splurge, and we really enjoyed it. Getting to eat by ourselves was a big treat, and the shrimp cocktail, filet mignons, potatoes, and mud pie were outstanding. I would do Chops again. On Thurday, there was also nothing on the menu to our liking, so we made reservations Tuesday evening for 6:00pm on Thursday in Portofino. It was okay, better than MDR, but not as good as Chops. Service was excellent in both, but I probably would not do Portofino again. There was no problem getting reservations on board, and neither restaurant was busy. Food in the MDR was fine, though we did notice a decline from our cruise last year. The menu was the same, but for the first time, the food seemed quite obviously prepared in advance, and had a steam table quality to it. Dishes that have always been my favorites in the past were just average this time, and again seemed that they had sat for awhile before being served. It was always hot, but just lacked something this time. This was the first area that we commented on cutbacks. Service in the dining room was impeccable, and it really seemed that RC has given the staff a lecture about making up for the cutbacks by improving service. Service in all areas was the best we've ever had, and we noticed this the most in the Windjammer. It had always been a hastle to find a table in the WJ, but this cruise there was always a waiter (and most times, our headwaiter from the MDR)to point out a free table to us, and someone bringing around a beverage cart for refills. Food in WJ is fine. We discovered that there are some different things served after lunch, during the "snack" time, and by the end of the week we were making it a point to wait till then so we could have something different. (The tuna salad is excellent!) It is also nice to grab a few sandwiches from Cafe Promenade and bring them up to WJ to pair with a bowl of soup. Cafe Promenade has some of the best food on board.

Cabin Review

Interior Stateroom

Cabin m

9303. great location, quiet cabin. Easy walk up to Windjammer and good access to elevators.

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