jmel1972 Cruise Review on Mariner of the Seas on May 06, 2019

Mariner of the Seas Cruise Review

Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 38

Overall rating:

1 out of 5
Mariner of the Seas

4 Night Bahamas (Port Canaveral Roundtrip)

Sail date: May 06, 2019

Ship: Mariner of the Seas

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

This was my first cruise with Royal Caribbean, I was looking forward to a fun, relaxing time. My girlfriend is legally blind, she has low vision, so we always contact the cruise line ahead of time to make sure she is comfortable enough with the ship and the itinerary, as we have done with the three previous cruises we have been on with other cruise lines. None of what Royal Caribbean said ended up happening, this includes large print menus and cruise compasses. I realize that this really doesn’t affect most people, but for people with disabilities, especially a visual disability, rely on feeling safe on a ship to be able to enjoy themselves. Now on to the ship itself. CABIN: The cabin was your standard ship cabin, although, it was the smallest balcony we have had. The cabin itself was worn looking. There were stains on the couch cushions, and throughout the carpet. For some reason, all of the wood, desk, cabinets, etc. were really sticky. We had to wipe everything down before feeling comfortable in there. FOOD: the food was wildly inconsistent, and was ok at best. We did not eat at the buffet at all. The food in the dining rooms lacked flavor and any sort of creativity. The pizza at the promenade cafe was pretty good. We ate breakfast in the dining room every day. One thing that bothered me about breakfast service is, they had a buffet set up in the middle of the dining room. The was strange to me, if I wanted a buffet, I would’ve went to the buffet. It felt like they were trying to get away from serving the guests. The worst part of breakfast was that they couldn’t even make fresh toast, it was just sitting in a basket, and was rock hard. SHOWS AND ENTERTAINMENT: we didn’t see the ice show or the stage production. Our biggest issue here was the fact that they kept changing the schedule for shows and events. We saw the comedian at the welcome show on the first night, he was funny, so we were looking forward to the other comedy shows. This ship has the new Royal Caribbean app, which has the full schedule for the entire cruise available. The schedule for the comedy show kept changing, in the end, the only other comedy show was on the last night at midnight, had to be off the ship early the next morning, great job. We also love playing trivia while on the ship. The entertainment staff couldn’t even do this right. One time, a crew member came down to play the completely wrong game, and told us we were wrong, a moment later, the lady came over to host our game and had to tell the other guy he was in the wrong place. Another time, actually later on the same night, we went for trivia, and the host actually played the trivia game from the night before, wouldn’t listen to us when we tried to tell him. PORTS: We did not get off the ship at Nassau, this was our third time there. At the new Coco Cay, we rented a bungalow on south beach. We were told the shuttle will bring you right to the bungalow area, no, got dropped off about a half mile down the beach through deep, soft sand. There were plenty of servers around to take drink orders, they just didn’t walk around much at all, not one server walked near our bungalow all day. The island is beautiful though. OVERALL SHIP CLEANLINESS: the refurbishments on this ship are beautiful, but was still probably the dirtiest ship we have been on. Banisters were dirty, carpets were dirty. We never saw anybody cleaning, which is uncommon for a cruise. We saw staff riding the elevator, just not wiping anything down. This was our fourth cruise in the last three years, and this was the first time we did not enjoy ourselves at all. My girlfriend actually felt scared going around this ship.
Was this review helpful? 38

1 Comment

prestinanelsonqualls    5 years ago

If she was with you why did she feel unsafe? Your entire review contradicts the tons of other reviews that are the complete opposite of why you say. And I’m not sure why not having Braille materials for her to read made for an uncomfortable cruise. If her needing or wanting to know what was on the compass was that important than you could’ve just read it to her. I’m sorry for her disability, my son has the same issue but there’s no need for everyone to change everything or bend over backwards for such simple things as providing Braille materials when you were there to help her. Now had she been cruising alone then yeah those things should have been made available to her. But that’s not the case here. You seem to have not liked anything about the cruise so maybe cruising isn’t for you all? No offense but that’s how it appears. I can understand how being in small surroundings with that number of people making her fearful or anxious considering her inability to see, because it probably would be nerve wracking for me as well in that circumstance, but you all had to have known it was going to be a crowded and loud environment so why put her in that type of environment and make her miserable?

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