So… I have just returned from a 4-day Caribbean cruise onboard the Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas. I will have more information about the ship, dining, nightlife, and each of the ports that we visited. However, in the meantime let me say that I had a great time kicking off the 40th birthday celebration month for my friend Jaime! Lots of pictures and information to follow! The picture above is the pool deck on the 11th floor.

Onboard Features of the Mariner of the Sea

I have been fortunate in the past to have gone on a few cruises, both in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, on a few different cruise lines. The Mariner of the Seas is a fine ship and designed perfectly for the types of cruises that it focuses on – long weekends and getaways to family-friendly ports. They certainly don’t cater exclusively to families, but they do have a lot of kid-friendly features. And being a big kid myself, I availed myself of them as often as possible. The addition of the Perfect Storm water slides and the FlowRider surfing area screams “Bring the whole family”. I strongly recommend the slides, they were a lot of fun. And I am sure that the FlowRider surfing is great for others, but I am a little bit too uncoordinated to not have taken a few spills. I expected exactly this kind of fun when I booked this little jaunt to the Bahamas. I didn’t particularly enjoy the mall-like setup of the Promenade area that much, but it provides a good shopping area with a few different bars thrown in for good measure.

Pool Deck

The pool deck on the 11th floor was my favorite place to congregate daily. The poolside service was outstanding but not always very speedy, which is understandable since almost everyone was poolside any time the sun was out. Which was the right call by everyone, since it was always a fun time! I am not much of a joiner when it comes to the games that people played on deck, but it seemed like they were enjoying themselves. The bands were always lively, and when you add in a couple of adult beverages, there was always fun to be had. The family-friendly cruise did lend to a lot of kids on the main pool deck, so I naturally gravitated to the adults-only Solarium area regularly.

Room

My room (or berth for any former shipmates) was as expected. It had a decent-sized bed, a small bathroom (I’m pretty tall), and a large porthole-style view of the waterline from the second deck of the ship. Comfortable enough while certainly not lavish, there’s nothing to complain or brag about. I would be interested in seeing what the suites look like in person, but I believe that if you’re spending all of your time in the room on a Caribbean cruise, you’re vacationing wrong (or you’re having ALOT of fun lol).

Getting around the ship is easy enough, but I have the advantage of having spent a lot of time onboard large ships in the US Navy. Still, it takes some time to get accustomed to where everything is at. The most important thing is to know where to get food, drinks, and access to the pool deck on the 11th floor. The staff was fantastic, beyond courteous, and took care of everything pretty much all of the time. I can’t speak highly enough of everyone that I encountered that were working on the ship!

Dining and Nightlife

This is an area that I will be getting a lot of assistance from my friends Jaime, Kristin, and Patrick as I am not much of a foodie. I am, however, a connoisseur of spirits (as are my friends) so we took the opportunity to peruse the various bar venues and imbibed a bit. This is the standard procedure, however, for a weekend at sea with day trips to the Bahamas!

Dining Options

To begin, let’s start with a confession – on this trip, I didn’t visit any of the specialty restaurants. I feel that this gives a less-than-complete opinion on the food options available and the quality of the food that I didn’t get the chance to try. This included a lovely Italian restaurant called Jamie’s Italian and hibachi or sushi at Izumi. However, the main dining hall food every night was better than good, if not spectacular. The daily buffet option at Windrunner was solid fare, and occasionally quite good. There was a hotdog stand and frozen yogurt on the pool deck as well. As a fan of late-night food, this was an area that needed a lot of improvement. The only post-club food option was pizza, and not great pizza at that. Of course, living in NYC certainly skews my opinion of pizza not being served outside of my hometown.

Libations

The bars and clubs on board the Mariner of the Seas were numerous and generally a lot of fun. This is made easier with the combination of the Deluxe Drinking Package, and the use of their SeaPass system. With these two things, all that you have to do is hand them your room key and get your drinks. This covers most of the beverages that you would likely order, but some expensive options aren’t covered by the drink package (I ordered a bottle of wine with dinner that wasn’t covered). Since I spent a lot of time on the pool deck, I got most of my cocktails from the Solarium bar or the poolside bar. By the way, get the rum punch – there’s just something about it that feels like the drink to have on a Caribbean cruise! A wide range of options from some tequila and salsa at Boleros, live piano and singing at the Schooner, and my personal favorite the tiki-themed drinks at the Bamboo Lounge. Once again, a great experience with the staff and bartenders at all of the locations on the ship.

Late Night

Late night, the Ellington Club was a great place to hear music and do a little dancing. However, as a jazz fan, I often wondered where the actual jazz was. The room is old-school jazz-themed, but it usually played top 40 or house music. A younger crowd and the circular bar at the center was always busy. Either way, a fun time was had by all at night! One of the evenings there was a massive dance party in the main theater area that involved one too many drinks and me dancing poorly way too much of the evening. I had walked by the karaoke and never made it in, but it sounded like every karaoke I have ever been to – tons of fun, with no recording contracts in the offing.

Conclusion

All in all, I had a great time on the Mariner of the Seas. It was as much about the people that I was fortunate enough to travel with, but that usually seems to be the case. I slept too little, ate too much, and generally had more fun onboard than I would have at a normal all-inclusive resort. Up next will be a review of the ports of call for this little Caribbean adventure – Nassau and CocoCay!