If you’d prefer to watch the video version, it’s linked below.
Part 1: Travel to Port Canaveral
One of the weaker portions of my plan was that I needed to get from my hotel near Orlando’s main airport (MCO) to Port Canaveral. Before the cruise, I found, pre-booked, and prepaid for a shuttle to take me all the way there for what I thought was a nice rate.
Anyway, the time of my shuttle came and went. There was no sign of anyone wanting to pick me up.
15 minutes later I called the shuttle company. Their voice mail was full. 🤬🤬🤬 I thought I was in real trouble. But I got a call back immediately from them. The lady there was apologetic and wanted to make alternate arrangements for me. I said all right. Time was ticking and I had visions of The 80s Cruise sailing off without me. 😢
15 minutes later, I found out what the alternate arrangements were – they would call an Uber for me, at their expense, and have them pick me up at the hotel and drop me off at the ship. That was one of the things I thought I might have needed to do, so I had priced it out on Lyft (I don’t use Uber – long story). Depending on the usual factors, it’s a $70-100 ride, plus tip.
A few minutes later, the driver came. He was friendly and obviously knew the area. We finally got to Mariner OTS at 12:30, only about 30 minutes past my scheduled appointment time. I threw him an extra cash tip because he performed well in what must have been an extraordinary situation for him.
The shuttle company asked for a review, and I found it surprisingly difficult to do. Obviously, I got a fantastic glass of lemonade out of what was a bunch of lemons for both of us. But it’s obviously an unsustainable business model to provide $100 ride shares for… quite a bit less than $100. I would hesitate to recommend them for that reason. But if they’re willing to treat me, random customer from a faraway state, this well, it says a lot about who’s behind the organization and how far they’re willing to go above and beyond the minimums of customer service.
Part 2: Embarkation
The boarding process was more efficient than my clumsy brain and paperwork could handle. Even through my inefficiency, I got on the ship in near record time.
The room was ready, but I had a couple of errands to run. First, I had to stop by the MDR on deck 4 to finish my eMuster. I did that, but apparently it didn’t take, so I had to redo it two hours later. The second errand was to stop by the Windjammer for lunch. This was my first Jammer stop, since I had never been on Royal Caribbean before. My notes:
* Good food
* Lots of variety
* Very large area
* What thrift store did they get their chairs from? Those things weren’t in fashion in 2002, when the Mariner was built. The chairs were in decent shape (from what I saw), but they contributed to a depressing, cheap diner/cafeteria experience
On to the cabin. It was another interior. Sadly, Royal didn’t have any kind of bridge cam on the TV, so I had to go out to get any view of daylight.
There were several channels dedicated to The 80s Cruise, its schedule, and selling cruises for next year. I liked the background music (songs from the 80s) a lot, since I was so familiar with it.
There were three channels dedicated to 80s movies.
Filling out the TV feed are a few house Royal channels, some news channels (MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, BBC), three ESPN sports channels, and two other sports channels.
Part 3: First concerts
The first concert on the first night that I went to was ABC. I thought the pre-concert entry process was a little inefficient. There were reserved seats for those who booked the cruise back in March 2020. I booked in July 2020 and there was no option to prebook seats available for me. They could walk right in and take their seats. Fine. Then came those who didn’t have reservations but wanted to come early. There was a line for us, and in this case, it was substantial and snaked through the casino. On this day I was offered a singleton seat in the center of row 7 between large groups of reserved seats. It looked good to me, so I took it. It turned out to be pretty good. You’ll see in the photo.
I liked ABC back in the day and I liked this concert. They played all the songs I expected them to play (including “Poison Arrow”, my favorite from them), and some of the songs I missed from them sounded pretty good.
On Sunday we were scheduled to dock in Nassau. As we approached it, we took a sharp turn away. The seas were too rough and the winds too high, according to the Captain. Fair enough. We didn’t stop there, and would proceed straight to St. Thomas.
After a leisurely day, I settled in to see Paul Young at Studio B, the alternate theater here. But Gene Loves Jezebel was the band that came out. Bait and switch! ECP staff warned us there would be changes on this day, but I never could find out what changes they made. Except, perhaps, for this one. So I did something I never had done before and walked out after the introduction but before the music started playing. It was nothing personal, of course.
Monday was another day at sea and the day for Dire Straits Legacy (DSL). This was a tribute band on steroids. They had three members who were in Dire Straits. They also had Trevor Horn, who was in Yes for a while. Trevor took some time to play and sign “Owner of a Lonely Heart” for us. That was the clear second favorite in the audience to the one Dire Straits song we all know.
