Trip Report Family Cruise
Mariner of the Seas
November 4-11, 2007

Planning:
In late April of 2006 we received discount coupons from Royal Caribbean via the Crown and Anchor Society. We'd often said we would like to take our family on a cruise. Our 40th Wedding Anniversary would be in September of 2007. Not knowing what kind of shape we would be in for our 50th Anniversary, we decided to go ahead with a family cruise, but not in September. We were not comfortable taking our then 4 year old granddaughter at the height of hurricane season. (She would be 5 by the time we sailed).

We decided on early November since the hurricane season is pretty much over by then and the price was right. November 4 through 11, 2007 was good for everyone as far as they knew so far in advance. A choice of Eastern or Western Caribbean was given. The Western Caribbean was a unanimous choice based on the ports of call. Everything was booked by
May 6, 2007

This was, in fact, the same itinerary that we took on our first cruise on the Navigator of the Seas out of Miami. This time it would be on the Mariner of the Seas, the Navigator's sister ship, out of Port Canaveral. We considered Freedom of the Seas and Liberty of the Seas, but decided that it was just too big for a first cruise for the rest of our family.

A call was made to our cruise only agent. We ended up playing phone tag for a while, but finally connected. Our daughter was adamant that she did not want a balcony cabin with a young child. We booked 3 large ocean view cabins. I was surprised when Our agent told me we had gotten the last 3 cabins in that category. We thought it was strange since we were booking so early. We found out later there are not many cabins in the category we had selected, and they are located only in the bow and stern of the ship. We did book one cabin that was slightly smaller for our single son.

The very hefty single supplement was good reason for having a cruise agent working with you. We were willing to pay this so that everyone could have some privacy. That fee was negotiated by our agent resulting in a slightly lowered fee. (That all changed closer to our sailing date when we added another passenger).

Everyone except our daughter and granddaughter had up-to-date passports. Our daughter needed to renew hers and our granddaughter had to get one. They got caught in "the great passport mess."

Our granddaughter received hers. Several days went by and our daughter had not gotten hers. It did eventually arrive a number of days later. At least it came in time for the cruise.

In the meantime, we found out that our son was seriously dating someone. In asking the kind of questions mothers ask, I wanted to know if her work ever took her to Canada or England—fishing to see if she had a passport. He saw right through that one and said he'd love to have her come with us.

We checked with our agent to see how close to the cruise we could add an additional passenger. Because we had taken the air option with the cruise line we had up to 30 days.

At first when our son invited her, she said she could not get away from work to go. Apparently she told her boss, who according to our son, "Gently rapped her alongside the head and told her to go." She did join us which eliminated the single supplement.

By August of 2007 the cruise was completely paid for; tuxedoes for our son and son-in-law were rented and were to be delivered to their staterooms; and shopping for shore excursions was done. We recommend cruise line sponsored excursions for our first time cruisers.

In late August when we were babysitting our granddaughter, we could tell she was confused about the order of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We got the order straightened out by telling her we would go on our trip right after Halloween. Her response: "You mean we'll finally get to go on 'the big boat'!". We assured her we would.

In mid-October, we received a call from our agent saying that our documents were in. The cruise part was fine, but there was a problem with the air. All of us, except our son's girlfriend, were on the same US Airways flights. [Uh-oh US Airways out of Philadelphia]. She was booked on Northwest by herself. She was okay with this. Our agent didn't like the idea of a young girl flying by herself. I assured him that she traveled all the time for work so that was not a problem. We did feel some responsibility for her since we'd invited her to join us and preferred that she and our son travel together.

Thank goodness for a good agent. He spent hours trying to get this mess straightened out. At one point we even considered canceling the air and booking it ourselves, but then how to get from Orlando to Port Canaveral?

In the end they flew a US Airways flight to Washington, DC then to Orlando. The rest of us were on a direct flight from Philadelphia to Orlando
The 2 flights were to arrive in Orlando 4 minutes apart.
Coming home they were on Northwest with a stopover in Detroit.
The rest of us went from Orlando to Charlotte to Philadelphia.

In the meantime, our agent sent out all of our documentation. Everyone received theirs except Paul and me. Ironic that the ones paying for this whole venture didn't get theirs. Our agent did some follow-up and then went to RCII for emergency documents. In the end we received both sets.

Finally It's Here!

We made sure that everyone checked in on-line for both flights down and the cruise. Check-in was breeze in both cases.

Security at the airport got interesting. This was the first time Paul had flown since having knee replacement surgery about a year ago. He set off the alarm big time. He carries a card from the doctor, but it was not looked at. It took him nearly 20 minutes to get through the screening. Fortunately, we always allow plenty of time so the delay was not a problem.

Both of our flights arrived in Orlando on time. As we were standing at the baggage carousel, I got out my cell phone to call our son only to look up and see him standing in front of me. They were getting bags from the carousel right next to ours.

We had just missed a Royal Caribbean agent at the baggage carousel, so went to find them in the airport. The staff there was super nice, and they were very organized. (I was concerned because of our experience in Miami—what a mess!)

Finally, we were on the bus to Port Canaveral. It seemed like the people on the bus with us were a very heavy drinking crowd. We found out why later.

The timing was really close. We boarded the ship at 3:30. If we'd been ½ hour later we might not have made the ship. The good part was that we were able to go straight to our cabins after a bracelet was put on our granddaughter indicating where she was to be taken for a muster station.

Muster drill, naps and dinner. It had been a very long day. We chose the main seating a 6:00 o'clock because of having a young child with us. (Paul and I decided we prefer the late seating).

After dinner, sign-up for Ocean Adventure, Royal Caribbean's children's program. Our granddaughter had an absolute ball every time she went.

We were all too tired to stay up for the Bon Voyage parade. Everyone was glad that the next day would be a nice relaxing day at sea.

At Sea Day—The next morning the captain came on with the usual announcements and said that the way that we would usually travel was experiencing very rough seas because of Hurricane Noel. He said that he was going to take us on "the smooth route." It wasn't. The water was very rough, and of course, with cabins at the bow of ship we really felt it. The swimming pools looked like wave pools, and even when walking mid-ship you could feel the rolling.

The first at sea day is also the first formal night. Since not many opportunities present themselves, I wanted a formal family portrait. In addition to that, a number of other formal portraits were taken of members of family. Our granddaughter had lost a front tooth right before we left, so she is smiling with her mouth closed in all of the pictures.

Through various communications, we found out that this was a fund raising cruise for the Hogs on the High Seas (Harley Davidson Motorcyclists). Formal night was Black Leather night for them. It sure made for an—umm interesting formal night.

We found out at the captain's reception that out of approximately 3200 passengers, 1720 +1 (the captain) were members of this group. Their purpose was to raise money for people who are ill to be able to take a cruise. Apparently this is a yearly thing always done the first week in November and always on the Mariner.