Was traveling with a group of 16 family members on Mariner of the Seas over Christmas. This was my 6th cruise and 3rd cruise with RCL, twice with Celebrity and once with Disney. I was looking forward to cruising on Mariner since it appeared to offer a good variety of amenities on board and included a stop at Coco Cay. In general we had some good experiences, highlights included Coco Cay (even though the weather was cool and raining in the morning), the flow rider, and playing games with family in playmakers sports bar. The main theater shows were lacking on our cruise but the bars had some good entertainment.

The dining experience could definitely have been better. The food at Windjammer for both breakfast and lunch was poor to average compared with our other cruises. For breakfast the scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon were ok. Biscuits were rock hard every day. Fruit was just ok but not great (either not ripe or brown bananas, etc). The main dinning was a disappointment in service and food. the food portions in our group varied widely for the same dish. (never excessive but from average portion to comically small) We appreciated having only one drink person to deal with (on celebrity separate staff handles the bar and wines) but frequently our drink orders were forgotten which was disappointing. Our drink person did come through after the meal every day with specialty shots which were included in our drink package was was a nice touch. (also may have been trying to sell to non package customers) We also expected more from the food in main dining room. Frequently the food was under or over cooked and portions always tended to be small. We had bad food served to some of our group and to make up for it the last night we were offered filet mignon and shrimp included (normally $14.95 up charge) we were told med rare steak would be pink inside but it was bloody purple-red and raw. Some of our group sent the food back and was never corrected satisfactorily. The wait staff including the section head kept trying to throw the kitchen staff under the bus by announcing that all our food issues should not be counted against them in the RCL feedback surveys. Many issues could have been corrected prior to even getting to us by the wait staff so as a customer that they were not bearing responsibility is inexcusable. We were planning on taking another cruise later next year and will definitely think twice about taking another Royal Caribbean.cruise.