We flew from London to LA on virgin atlantic and stayed for 3 nights at the elegant Hyatt in Anaheim, Orange county. This gave us an opportunity to visit Disneyland, go on a beach tour visiting various Orange county beaches like Huntingdon, Newport and Laguna beaches and also went shopping to South coast plaza, one of the largest shopping malls in Orange county. I had booked directly via Royal caribbean and booked the flights, hotels and transfers myself which makes the cost slightly cheaper and also gives freedom as far as the location of hotels, flight times, etc. We stayed in a 2 bedroom suite in hyatt which was newly refurbished and very spacious.
On the embarkation day I had booked a prime time private shuttle for $65 to take us from Anaheim to San Pedro. Emabarkation was a breeze. We got to San Pedro at 11.30am and were in the ship by noon. One of the fastest embarkations ever.
The ship was magnificent. Although the Mariner was nearly 7 years old, she was very well maintained. All the public and accomodation areas were all up to high standards. The food was great whether it was breakfast, lunches at windjammers or dinner in the dining room. We were on my time dining booked for 7.45pm each night but was easily changeable if we chose to go at a different time. Dining service was great on first day but below par on the next 2 days however after a quick chat with the head waiter, he moved us to a better area where we had a fabulous waiter named Francis from India who provided super service and accomodated every need of ours. The head waiter came for a chat each night to see how we were doing. As we were vegetarians we not only had the option of the choice from the main menu (which had a different indian curry with rice, roti and poppadom and raita each night) but he also brought us other veg dishes and more spicier curries from the crew menu. We looked forward to our dining each night mainly due to the excellent service by Francis and his assistant waiter.