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| Mariner docked in Coco Cay |
Just back from a
short 4 night trip on Mariner of the Seas from Port Canaveral and the big story
for us was it was our first visit to Royal Caribbean's "Perfect Day Coco
Cay". More on that in a bit.
This was our third
trip on Mariner and second since she got the "Royal Amplified"
treatment last year. The ship still
looks great and now that she leaves from Port Canaveral, it's much more
convenient for us.
Embarkation in Port
Canaveral was unbelievably fast.
Somehow, when we checked in online we were given "expedited"
boarding. We didn't select anything
special, just got lucky I guess. Reps at
the terminal mentioned this was a new system they were testing out. After we arrived at the terminal, we dropped
off our bags with the porter, went around and parked, and then headed inside to
check in. The people there looked at our
pass and sent us to an empty line marked expedited. From there, we went through to a "facial
recognition" system that took a few seconds each and then on to a
representative with a tablet to complete the check in. We were given a "pass" to show on
the way through to the ship and in no time, we were onboard. In all, I'd say it took maybe 10
minutes. Really nice.
As I mentioned, the
ship is still in fine shape, having had a fairly major update last year. Our cabin on this one was a Promenade View
inside cabin, first one we've ever had. We
had booked a simple inside guarantee so I guess this was technically an
upgrade. It took till almost a week
prior to the sailing to finally get an assigned cabin which was the longest we
have ever waited on a "guarantee" booking. The cabin was nice and the promenade view was
somewhat of a novelty, however we didn't really take advantage of the view
much. One thing we did notice with this cabin was the noise from the
promenade. We stayed out fairly late at
night and noticed that they did seem to quiet things down in the promenade at
about 12AM, so that wasn't much of an issue.
However, in the mornings, the overhead music in the promenade started at
about 8AM and it was loud enough to be annoying and wake us up earlier than we
wanted. Our only other complaint was there was a bit of a "funky" smell in the hall outside our cabin the first couple of nights, but it seemed to go away after a while. Oh well, not a huge deal and
nothing that will ruin our fun.
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| Oasis Lagoon on Coco Cay |
For this trip, all
of our evening dining was done in the Windjammer. Our only trip to the dining room was for the buffet lunch on the one sea day we had. That is a favorite of ours. Windjammer was
fine, with the usual fare. We did notice
that they seem to have improved the burgers in the "jammer". Normally, I don't particularly enjoy the
burgers, the meat quality is somewhat questionable and they just don't have
much flavor or nice burger texture. I'm
a bit of a burger connoisseur by the way, so I notice these things. On this cruise however, the burger patties
were much thicker and flavorful. They
also came on a nice roll instead of the usual "wonder bread" type
rolls you would get at Walmart for your back yard BBQ. So that was a nice surprise. Mariner also has the "Dog House"
which we really enjoy on the Oasis ships, so I had to make at least one stop
there. There were also some special
offerings at the grill on Coco Cay.
There were yummy Cuban Sandwiches as well as mini "shaved"
steak sandwiches with peppers and onions on rolls available. I may have had a couple of each, and fries, and possibly a hot dog.
Entertainment wise,
there wasn't anything that really caught our eye as far as shows go. What was cool was that there were 2 separate
nights of the "silent disco" which is quickly becoming one of our
favorites. Lots of fun. Nice that they had 2 on this short cruise.
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| Coco Cay |
Since I've mentioned
Coco Cay twice now, I'm sure you are dying to hear about it, let's get to the
ports of call. The first couple of days of this 4
night Bahamas cruise were sea days. On day 3 we stopped in Nassau which was
fine. Been there, done that. It was very hot so we didn't walk around for long before heading back to the ship. Day 4 was finally Coco Cay. We docked at about 8:00AM and assumed there
would be a bit of a rush to get off the ship so we waited until 9:30AM to
stroll ashore. Once ashore we headed to
the left to "Chill Island" which I assumed would be least crowded
since it's away from the tram path and away from the water park. We were pleasantly surprised that there was
plenty of room for everyone on shore. We
had no trouble finding some chairs with shade.
The area wasn't crowded at all and the beach was very nice. In fact, the whole island had plenty of room
for everyone. I did a quick walk around
the island while my wife sat in the shade and there was ample seating
everywhere I went.
After my sightseeing
tour, we decided to get a drink and move to the Oasis Lagoon where we quickly
found a shady spot on some loungers under an umbrella. I really like the Oasis Lagoon, it's huge and
fresh water. Couldn't resist taking a
dip since it was pretty hot out. There
is a huge swim up bar there but I didn't try it out since we were at the
opposite side of the lagoon. Wouldn't
have been too hard to get too, I was just feeling lazy and wanted to stay out
of the hot sun as much as possible.
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| Oasis Lagoon swim up bar |
When
it came time to grab a bite to eat, there were 3 different locations to choose
from on the island. We went to Skipper's
Grill, which is near the lagoon. Again,
to our surprise, there was no real crowd and finding a seat was extremely
easy. If you've been to Labadee, you
know that sometimes it's a complete zoo at lunch time trying to get food and
find seating. Not so on Coco Cay. Don't know if it's like this all the time
since we were the only ship there. The
island can accommodate 2 ships at a time, including Oasis Class ships which
hold more people, so there may be times it's much more crowded. As I mentioned earlier, the food was quite
good as well. The only real issue was
the birds. They are very aggressive
trying to get food. I did see some
"kites" flying around the island that look like birds. I assume they are there to mimic predators to
scare off the other birds. Not sure how
well it's working or what, if anything, can be done about it. One somewhat funny scene was when a young
teen came from the buffet and put down a burger he just got on a table. Then he decided to go to get a drink and as
soon as he left that table and turned away, dozens of birds descended on the
burger and it was gone in seconds. Staff
did their best to shoo them away, but no luck there. With that said, as long as you were at the table with your food, the birds did not bother you. What was a bit annoying were the people
intentionally feeding the birds and drawing more and more to the area. Not helpful.
So, there you have
it, our first experience at Perfect Day Coco Cay. It really did exceed our expectations. As usual, another great trip on Royal
Caribbean.
Hits:
- Coco Cay. Exceeded our expectations. Everyone we talked to had a great time and loved it.
- Expedited boarding. From curb to ship in about 10 minutes.
- Food improvements.
Misses:
- Noisy Promenade cabin
- Ravenous birds! Not much Royal can do about it. If you stay at your table and DON'T FEED THEM, they won't bother you.
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