This cruise kind of materialized out of nowhere for us. We hadn't planned to take a cruise this particular year. In fact, we had already booked a family cruise for the following year on Freedom of the Seas. I think it was early July when I received an e-mail from one of the many on-line cruise agents I frequent, with some great deals on last minute bookings. One was on Mariner of the Seas out of Port Canaveral to the Caribbean. The deal was so good we couldn't pass it up.
We decided to drive down to Florida again to keep costs down. Also, I just like driving. To me it's more interesting and fun than sitting in a cramped airplane for hours. The only thing I hate about the drive is the impossibly bad traffic in Virginia and around Washington DC. It never fails to add at least an extra 2 hours to our trip.
After driving all day Saturday and staying the night in a hotel we arrived at about noon on Sunday. This was our first trip out of Port Canaveral and the port itself is nice and easy to get to. There is plenty of parking available and it is reasonably priced. We chose to just park instead of dealing with dropping off our bags and then parking. We had decided to pack light this year so we didn't have as many bags as normal. Check in went relatively smoothly. If I recall correctly, this was when Royal Caribbean rolled out the on-line check in option where you could fill out all your boarding documents on the internet prior to arrival at the pier and just print out everything. The only problem during our check in was that they had 2 lines, one for on-line check in and one for regular. The on-line check in line was much longer but they didn't have enough agents to handle everyone quickly so the people who didn't check in on-line actually moved through faster.
The ship felt like we were home. Since we had been on Voyager Class ships 3 times by now everything was very familiar. Mariner of the Seas and Navigator of the Seas do differ from the earlier Voyager Class ships though. The cabins and balconies are larger and there are additional dining options like Chops Steak House and Jade Asian Dining buffet. Changes in lounges and bars also made the ship different enough to not feel like we had been there done that.
Our cabin was an inside cabin, our first on Royal Caribbean. Since this was an unplanned last minute cruise decision, we planned to go as cheap as possible. The cabin was a bit smaller than we had become accustomed to but I thought it was fine. My wife, on the other hand, didn't really like it. She missed having a balcony and it was a bit cramped with the 3 of us in it. For the amount of time you really spend in the cabin, I didn't mind.
This year we also decided to take a departure from traditional cruising routine and we skipped eating in the dining room the entire trip. We had planned this from the time we booked the trip because we simply wanted to give it a try and to reduce the amount of bags we had to bring on the trip. My wife and I both agreed that it was a great decision. We were able to choose when we had dinner and we didn't have to get all dressed up if we didn't want to. We still brought clothes nice enough to wander around on formal nights in. Most of our dining was at the buffets but we did eat in the specialty restaurants 3 nights. Twice in the Italian restaurant, Portofino (excellent!) and once in the Steak House, Chops. All the food was very good at the buffets and excellent at the specialty restaurants. Service, as always, was also excellent.
Our first stop was in Nassau, Bahamas and it was a pleasant surprise. I hadn't been to Nassau in a long time and I was happy to see that it was much different than my first visit almost 20 years prior. From what I remembered from my first visit, it was dirty and rundown but this time it was really nice and clean with all kinds of shopping and restaurants. We didn't book any excursions so we just wandered around. We ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe which has become somewhat of a tradition for us. We have been to Hard Rocks in Puerto Rico, Grand Cayman, Bahamas, and the Virgin Islands. Next we stopped in St. Thomas, USVI. Again we just wandered around. It had rained a bit that day so it was kind of a dreary day. We took our son on the tram ride that goes up the mountain near the pier. It was fun but the parrots that are usually running around in the shoppes at the top weren't there. The next port of call was St. Martin. We docked a the relatively new pier and took a water taxi over to the main shopping area. Again we just wandered around and had a nice time. Just after we returned to the ship a wicked little thunderstorm blew in. It was really nasty with very strong winds. We had been dodging storms for most of the trip and unfortunately, those storms eventually formed into Hurricane Katrina which hit after we had returned to Port Canaveral.
We had another great time on this cruise, as usual. The staff and entertainment were top notch as expected. Our captain, Captain Gerry, was an unexpected surprise. He was really a lot of fun. Usually the captains are a bit stuffy and stiff. It's not their job to entertain. Captain Gerry was completely the opposite. He was very friendly and fun. He made jokes every day with his daily announcements and was always walking around talking to passengers throughout the week. The best part was the last night of the cruise when he made a surprise visit to the pub in the promenade with his guitar! He joined the guitar player who performed there every night and they belted out a few songs together. Captain Gerry sang a few very good renditions of some popular American songs including some Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bob Seger. It drew a huge crowd that completely blocked up the promenade. Unfortunately, I didn't have my cameras with me as they were both recharging.
Another great cruise came and went in a blink of an eye. We are always a bit sad on that last night that the cruise is over. It seems to go so quickly. Fortunately, we had another cruise already booked to look forward to.
No comments:
Post a Comment