RCCL Mariner anyone?

[westjones]

With RCCL, do you have book really early like with DCL to get a good price, or can you still get a decent price on a RCCL about 6 months out from your sail date?

DJ

 

[hopelea]

That is a great question.....do I need to book one year in advance with RCCL or can I wait until 6 months???

 

[travellady]

It depends on the time of year and the itinerary. I just booked a 4 day Monarch of the Seas for Feb 2005 and got a great rate and good choice of rooms. And, many kids are on school break this week but most who are taking cruises are probably taking 7 day. Getting a great rate on the 7 day Vision of the Seas for the same week was impossible - that one probably needs to be booked much earlier.

And, I looked into booking a 5 day Enchantment of the Seas for Dec 24 2005 out of Fort Lauderdale and though the rates were pretty good, it was hard finding connecting oceanview staterooms as those were mostly booked in the locations I would have preferred.

Another example is an Alaska 10 day Vision of the Seas Cruisetour I booked for June 2005 back in June of this year. Sadly I've had to cancel due to scheduling conflicts (well still going to Alaska but on Princess for 7 days out of Seattle) but the total price of that package has gone up 300.00 since I booked.

If I think I'm going to go, I go ahead and book as soon as I think it, and then you I can always cancel if need be. The other advantage to booking sooner other than price is stateroom choice and easier to get main dining seating if that's important to you.

 

[tezb]

When we cruised the Mariner this past June, I got all my info from the cruise critic..RCCL section.

BTW...w/ RCCL, you don't have to rush to book ressies upon boarding because you can do all of this from your room if you choose. We didn't book anything special but you can either call or do it from you TV in your stateroom. When we did use the spa (last minute decision) we just walked in on a Port day and got in same day. Also...RCCL offers special Spa rates on Port days and towards end of the week of cruise. Some are pretty good deals like half off! It's always advertised each day...if you're not getting off the ship, it's a good idea to take advantage of the deals/coupons.

 

[KerriL]

After 4 DCL cruises we are trying the Mariner on April 17 2005. We have a group of about 15 families. 60 plus people.
The kids are getting older (DS-15 & DD-14) and although they had a blast last July on the Magic, they are looking forward to a new experience on the Mariner with the rock climbing wall and skating. They are worried that they will never step foot on either the Magic or Wonder but I've assured them that we will eventually take our foster baby when she's old enough to enjoy it.
It will be weird to see the Wonder in port on that Sunday and not be boarding her
Kerri

 

[kaykels]

where are you guys finding these great rates? I know where to look for DCL rates (DU, All Seasons, Costco, Tim larson, Magical Journies, etc.) All have different rates at any given time and you never know which is cheapest unless you do your homework. But where do I go for RCCL? Same places? Are the rates posted anywhere?

 

[disneygal58]

Rachel,
I checked All Seasons, Travelocity, Orbitz and the RCCL website itself. The rates were close to identical, so we booked directly through RCCL.

Dawn

 

[Sammy]

We are also booked on the Mariner for Feb 27th 2005 sailing...Western Caribbean. We are huge Disney fans, but just couldn't justify the additional $1,500 to sail DCL (School vaca week). We will have two 15 year olds; one 13 year old; and one 9 year old. The two 15's have already told me they are NOT planning on sleeping the entire 7 days!! The ship looks wonderful and I'm sure there will be tons of stuff to keep everyone happy. I would still love to sail DCL someday, but they would really have to come down on their prices for me to do so.

Sammy

 

[DisneyMim]

We just sailed on The Explorer this past July. We are huge Disney fans, go often, have been DVC members since 1991, yada, yada, yada, but when we looked into a cruise my kids did not want to go Disney. They are older (15 and 20) and wanted more activities. They absolutely loved RCCL and want to go again next summer. Cost was not a factor for us. We did a lot of reseach before we booked and we are all night owls so that figured into our decision. DCL just looked like it was much too "little kiddish" which would have been perfect if our kids were young. We prpbably should have done DCL years ago, but never did. When we are at WDW we close all the parks and never get up early. We did this with our cruise. There is just so much to do that the kids never got bored. There were tons of kids in the same age range as our kids, not many young kids at all although I did talk to one Mom who had been on several DCL cruises and said that her kids were enjoying the cruise better because there were so many less kids on RCCL that hers were getting extra attention from the staff, etc. We just loved everything about our RCCL cruise and although I would love to try DCL I think I'll have to wait for when hubby and I go alone.

 

[christinou]

I checked the rates for both DCL and Mariner for February 06 and the rates are the same for an oceanview cabin.....
Do you get better rates on the Mariner if you wait longer, I seem to get decent prices with DCL because I do book up so early....
I would be happy to try something else, but as long as the price are the same, I am afraid to switch and then to be disapointed, we do love DCL.....
I do have to had that my kids are 7 and 9, and still love the princesses and everything Disney.

 

[sushilover]

We were on the Western Mariner on August 29, 2004, the 7 day cruise that became a 9 day. Previously, DH (41), me (42) and DS(8) had sailed on DCL 3 times, 4-day Wonder and Eastern and Western Caribbean on the Magic. We also traveled with my sister and her family (DSIS-43), DBIL(44), DN1(13) – dear niece, and DN2(7). The 7 of us have sailed together on the Eastern and Western Magic.

We enjoyed the cruise, particularly Ochos Rios where we climbed Dunn Rivers Falls. Here are few of my random observations/ramblings. I did not go to the shows so I can’t really comment on that. I will be happy to answer any other questions.

Embarkation

The terminal at Port Canaveral was not as pretty as DCL but was fairly efficient. After entering the parking lot, you need to drive around a loop to drop off the luggage. As our mini-van (all 7 of us) was waiting for the next and a large bus marked “Fantasy Tours” pulled up next to us and tried to cut in front of us. My DBIL was driving and refused to let them in. A woman then stuck her head out and called him an a..hole. She said that the bus contained some crew members and they needed to be back on the ship by 1:00 PM (it was about 12:45PM) – he asked why does the bus say “Fantasy Tours” but let them in anyway. You would think there would be a separate area for the crew and instruct the crew about name calling guests.

After dropping off our luggage, DH and DBIL returned the minivan to Hertz, everyone else went into the terminal. DH and DBIL showed up about 40 minutes later. There were separate check in desks depending on the location of your cabin – our desk was for Decks 2, 6, and 7. This process was more organized than DCL since everyone goes to a different area.

After boarding the ship, I went to Guest Relations and purchased an in room internet connection package - $100 for 7 days. There are only 18 units for the entire ship and I got #14.

Stateroom

We had #6348 – a superior balcony room (Category D1) connecting with my DSis’s room. The room was smaller than DCL – a typical outside room on DCL is 214 sq ft compared with 161 sq ft on RCCL and 268 sq ft for a verandah room compared to 248 sq ft for our room. The bathroom was small with a circular shower stall – with a handheld shower attachment – my favorite feature of the bathroom. When you 1st entered our room, to the left are closets, on the right, the bathroom, then the living area with couch and desk, the beds and finally the balcony. I found that when DS was sleeping and DH was at the desk, I had to ask him to move so I could use the bathroom (and I am slender). We did not use our balcony – our navigator’s verandah on the Wonder was much bigger.

We usually book category 8 on DCL – almost always travel in August and I think it’s just too hot to sit on the balcony then. We only booked a balcony room on this cruise since DSis wanted a pull-out couch for her daughters. BTW for all those traveling with families, you really need to look at the floor plans for the cabins – many only sleep 3 people and the berth sits directly above the bed – it folds into the wall behind the 2 bottom beds. I could not believe this and think I would be claustrophobic with my son sleeping directly above me.

The location of our room was perfect – centrally located 1 deck above the promenade and 1 floor below the library. The promenade rooms look interesting but noisy. I would think its hard to nap during the day with all the noise and music playing.


Ship

The ship was beautiful, intelligently laid out. The only thing I did not like was that you could not walk all the way through on certain decks – you have to walk through the casino on certain floors. I kept having to walk back up to Deck 5 to get to the theatres. It’s the same with the kids program, you need to walk through the arcade to drop your child off.

I did very much like Café Promenade – the availability of tea/coffee and pastries, sandwiches, and pizza. The fitness center is huge and there are a lot of classes like Yoga and Pilates (some classes are $10 plus tip).

Food

I thought the food was very good to excellent despite the poor reputation. The choices were varied and consistently good. The Windjammer buffet also has an Asian section - Jade. Food at Jade was very good with offering like scrambled eggs with shrimp and peppers at breakfast, Filipino coconut custard at lunch, and Balinese chicken soup at dinner. Dinner in the dining room was very good and excellent in the Portofinos – I actually like Portofinos better than Palo although Portofino serves only Italian cuisine and the dishes are more varied at Palo. Did not try Chops. With the exception of Portfinos and Jade, I thought overall, the desserts were nothing special – uninspired.

I asked the head waiter about the poor food reputation and he said the food has markedly improved since RCCL and Celebrity merged. There were more eating opportunities also than DCL. I do so miss high tea on DCL. Windjammer is open during tea time but serves things like sandwiches, egg rolls, nachos, ribs – there is a section with scones, whipped cream and canned strawberries. One day, there was an excellent chocolate bread pudding during tea.

Windjammer is also open during dinner time – some nights, the kids ate there prior to going to the kids program, we had late seating. Room service was lacking after 10PM – the kids were hungry at 10 PM and only got soup and potato chips or a hotdog.

Kids Program

The kids program was good – the counselors are very caring individuals who love their work. The program itself was very good with fun activities such as pirate night and pajama party. I also liked the fact that each day, there was an activity that we could do as a family – the scavenger hunt, water balloon toss, family bingo, pictionary, etc. They also give prizes based on your participation in the program – each session, you get a point card with each family member receiving a point card if you attend the family events. These point cards can be redeemed for prizes at the end of the cruise. I posted the kids compass at the link below

http://members2.clubphoto.com/flower905746/owner-45b5-1.phtml

The hours of the program were not great – I felt like I was always dropping off or picking them up despite the fact that DN1 picked up the kids most evenings. Usually, the clubs open at 9 AM and you need to pick the kids up at 12PM (or earlier, sometimes it was 11:30 AM) and don’t reopen until 2 PM. Then at 5PM (or 4:30 PM), they need to picked up again and can be dropped off at 7PM until 10PM then its $5 per child per hour until 1 AM.

Service

This is where I really miss the famous Disney service, I think the staff needs more training in dealing people. Several times, in Windjammer, we would see several serves standing around chatting in front of dirty dishes that needed clearing. My DBIL left the cruise in Cozumel to get back to work, the guest relations person recommended a hotel near the Pier which is where he stayed. Well, the hotel charges rooms by the hour and there was no water in the morning - he showered at the Dallas Fort Worth airport.

Due to Hurricane Frances, we were told that the boat would be returning to Miami. We changed our flights to leave from Fort Lauderdale. The guest relation person told us that they would not be providing bus to the Fort Lauderdale airport just back to Port Canaveral and the Miami airport. Does any of this make sense since you need to pass the airport to go back to Port Canaveral? There were many more minor incidences like this.

Disembarkation

Oh my goodness – was this awful? The cruisecritic board recommends that you carry your own luggage off – now I know why. Unfortunately, they were not allowing this since everyone would be doing this – they handed out the colored tags based on the location of your cabin – Deck 6 all received green tags. I’m sure the platinum and gold crown and anchor members received priority disembarkation.

They started calling colors at 6:50 AM – DSis and I were having our last breakfast in Windjammer. We exited our cabins a little before 8 AM as request by RCCL and went down to the Promenade. Meanwhile, about 4 different colors were called. At 8:00, the blue color was called – our green was next – green, our color, was called at 9:15AM. There were many announcements for the blue color people to leave the ship – they were holding up the boarding process. I would say that about 300 people had the green color. We were the 1st half of the group to disembark. You needed to wait to enter the terminal and clear immigration.

Then came finding the luggage. I have never seen anything so disorganized. The luggage comes around on a conveyor belt and the room was hot and airless. There are no laundry facilities on the Mariner so you need to pack more. I think most people received most of their luggage in the 1st 30 minutes and then had to keep waiting for the last piece. This was just awful, large suitcases everywhere, screaming kids, grouchy adults. It was 1 ½ hours later that we got all of our luggage. 20/20 hindsight, we should have played miniature golf and waited until they announced that green tag people were holding everyone else up.

 

[disneygal58]

Thank you so much for the detailed post. I have only sailed DCL and know that I have been spoiled by many aspects - the size of the cabins, the extraordinary staff and ease of debarkation. I am keeping an open mind and we shall see...

Dawn

 

[tezb]

We sailed the Mariner in June and also worried about the different process from DCL of leaving the ship. To our surprise, it was fine and went very smoothly. No problems and off the ship at our requested time. They asked us upon arrival what time our flight was and what time we had someone picking us up. Told them 9-9:30 and we were off before that. Maybe it's different each time but it was quick and painless for our cruise.

 

[westjones]

Next week it looks like the Travel Channel will be showing a RCCL cruise:

http://travel.discovery.com/schedule/episode.jsp?episode=0&cpi=85655&gid=5726&channel=TRV

Not sure if this is like the one that has been discussed. I don't know much about RCCL at all. I am just starting to look into as a possible alternative.

DJ

 

[whytcrystal]

Anne/Lisa Goeke

DH and I are also sailing on the Mariner that week. (Along with 3 other couples). We have cruised DCL twice and had a wonderful time but the concensous was we should try something new. May have to go back to DCL one more time for the new itinerary with two days at Castaway Cay!


Christy

 

[whytcrystal]

RCCL will be featured on the Travel Channel several times later in the month.

 

[NCRedding]

On our Alaskan cruise. the sodas were at extra cost, even at seated meals.

The kids club was fun, and my DD enjoyed getting to know the small group of girls her age. The hours were inconvenient as they ended around lunch and dinner. There is also a charge for the clubs after 10 each night--$5 per hour.

I thought the evening entertainment was a bit dull on RCCL, but loved the daily trivia challenges.

Food--DCl won hands down. The food on RCL was bland, often lukewarm, and was presented with no style.

I still prefer to spend the extra for a sure thing on DCL.

 

[paulmc80]

We were looking at doing the Mariner! Great to have seen this threaded started here.

Never dreamed I'd be looking at a non-DCL cruise. LOL

 

[hopelea]

We are thinking of booking for 10-9-05 with RCCL. I have one question that I can't find the answer too (I've been on cruise critic)..........The sleeping arragements, the balcony rooms that sleep four, where are the extra two beds? Does the sofa make into a bed then the other drop down above it like on DC? I don't want the other two beds dropping down over my bed.

Anyone know the answer???

Thanks

we will be on the Mariner

 

[sushilover]

Hopelea, at night the sofa becomes a bed that sleeps 2 side by side.