Mariner of the Seas–14 Nights from Sao Paulo to Rome

After a 4 ½ hour red eye flight from Lima to Sao Paulo on the 12th of March, by 9am we were stumbling around the airport looking for the free shuttle bus to the Panamby Hotel. Believe it or not, the shuttle arrived and whisked us to the airport hotel in about 20 minutes. Early check-in (9:30am) was a gift. After hours and hours of researching hotels in Sao Paulo, we found most of them to be far too expensive for our meagre budget, so we were amazed at what CA$61.00 bought for us at the Panamby. A lovely, comfy room with a luscious bed that held us captive, dead as the Lords of Sipan, until supper time. We woke, showered and headed for the dining room at 7pm Brazil time. It was a buffet, quite lovely, quite delicious but fairly pricey as it cost almost the same price as the room! Have I mentioned that Sao Paulo is ‘squeeze the breath from your wheezing lungs’ expensive? Not as bad as Paris or Tokyo but almost. In spite of the whining wallet hardship we held ourselves together like troopers because the alternative was – go home and hide in the closet where the living is cheap but very dark! Immediately after dinner we rolled like stuffed sausages back to our room and slid into the sack again. Slept like we were Sipan Lords until the next morning. Then we were refreshed and excited! Getting to the port at Santos from the Panamby Hotel at Sao Paulo airport was no small accomplishment. Internet reports said a taxi to Santos would cost at least US$100. Ha! We were excessively determined not to pay anywhere near that much. We had read there was a bus...

Cruise morning anticipation is something like hurling through space doing one-handed cartwheels. Flying high, spinning fast and landing soft – our kind of travel. We skipped breakfast and took the free shuttle to the airport to catch the 8am Translitoral Bus to Santos, the port city for Sao Paulo. We asked where we were supposed to wait for Translitoral and another bus driver pointed to the place. We were there, ladies and gentlemen! Shoulder to elbow in the confusion and chaos of the busiest airport in South America. Right on time, there it was. Translitoral, oh my little dahling, carry me ahwaay. Bus to Santos, a 1 ½ hour ride, cost less than US$1000 but - we had to then take a taxi to the pier. Total came to about CA$70.00 and we had to move our own luggage – an astonishing outlay for people as cheap as we are. We consoled ourselves that it was worth every penny because the Royal Caribbean transfers were much more expensive and blah, blah, blah and moan and groan. We are getting pretty tired of moaning about taxis – have you noticed?

Check-in at Santos port was unquestionably the largest mess of pandemonious chaos we experienced on the entire trip. And whose fault was it? Our own (mouthed in a little tiny o-shaped whisper). The cruise documents, you see, clearly stated that RCI passengers should arrive at Santos no earlier than 2pm – and we were there and revving into cartwheel mode at 10:30am. What were we thinking? There were five ships in port – so how about these numbers? Five times say, 2000 passengers disembarking is, give or take, 10,000 people – and 5 times say, 2000 new passengers taking their place is, give or take, 10,000. So if all the twains shall meet then 20,000 people with their own agenda were trying to launch their cartwheels right in our face. What a mess! Completely disregard and strike from the record anything I have written in the past about crowds and/or pushing mobs. This was the all-time thronging icing on the ship of fool’s cake. Surely to goodness we will never do that again. Truth is though, we were quite worried about missing the transfer and thought that early was better. Ha, ha, ha….a lame excuse for pitiably poor planning. In fact I’m lucky the man with the wallet didn’t fire me.

Now here’s the good news. We will ignore what happened for those crowded hours – you don’t want to hear about it anyway. About 2:30pm we were able to check-in, make our way on board and find cabin 6295. Like temporary labour pains of giving birth, everything disappeared when we met the new baby! She was gorgeous! And she was all ours for fourteen nights – from Sao Paulo to Rome. Port stops in Rio, Salvador and Tenerife were only side-benefits. Who could ask for more? Well we could have – for some reason we were not upgraded to one of the suites. Nasty and unforgivable of RCI, really...

This is what Royal Caribbean writes about the ship – ‘guests on Mariner of the Seas experience one of the most exciting cruise ships ever built. With a total length of 1,020 feet, a weight of 138,000 tons and a capacity to hold 3,114 passengers, Mariner of the Seas has something for everyone. Part of the Voyager class of cruise ships, which represents the highest public space-per-guest ratio in the cruise market, this spectacular ship was designed with enhanced staterooms, expanded dining options and state-of-the-art recreational facilities like a rock-climbing wall, ice-skating rink and basketball court.’

This is what Donna writes about the ship. The Mariner of the Seas boasts 1,202 crew members who originated in 62 countries - a lot of people when you think about it. Also interesting, there are 123 couples working side by side on the Mariner. The ship’s focal point is an architectural masterpiece - a three story interior promenade with coffee shop, wine bar, Irish Pub and plenty of shopping. At each end of the promenade, glass elevators carry guests the height of the ship, fourteen stories. Our cabin had a promenade view – a window that overlooked the action day and night, with a window seat and adjacent sofa. An inviting living room area where we enjoyed breakfast room-service on several occasions. Details of the cabin are long and fat, way too extensive for this narrative, so you will have to look at the photos and take our word for it – unless Royal Caribbean puts us on their payroll and makes us couple 124.

Remember where we boarded the ship? Sao Paulo, right? Brazil. So can you guess what nationality dominated everything on board? Of the 3,114 passengers about 75% spoke Portuguese. Let me tell you there were more Brazilians on the Mariner than we left behind in Brazil (almost). Hundreds of them and at least half were young – in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. And what fun people to watch. Brazilians love life. They have music and movement embedded in everything they do. A comedian at one of the night shows did a skit about three cultures and how differently they might approach the desert bar on the Mariner. First was a French man who picked up a plate walked back and forth along the buffet, turned up his nose, put the plate back and walked away. Next was an American. He picked up a plate and with rapid movements loaded the plate to the hilt, started to walk away and then quickly returned to pile on two more pieces. Next was a Brazilian man who picked up a plate as music started playing somewhere 100 miles away. He started dancing along the line, back and forth, the plate moving up and down as he made a couple of selections. The comedian nailed the cultural quirks bang on and brought down the house with laughter.

Most Brazilians were slim and trim, some very wealthy, many were extremely good looking and wow! you should have seen the clothes! They outdid the Italians and French on the Costa Victoria by a nautical mile. Man oh man we mature ladies have gotta get rid of our runners and get into something a little more dramatic, like five inch heels! And we gotta get busy and hem up our skirts too – there was more leg showing on the promenade on formal nights than at some famous beaches during a heat wave (maybe not Ipanema). On one of the three formal nights we skipped dinner in the dining room, ordered a bottle of wine at the wine bar and sat and sipped at a ringside table on the promenade. It was one of the most memorable and fun nights of the cruise. A fashion show with top class performers. Gorgeous Latino hunks with babes that would rival the runways in Paris or Milan. Wink, wink, fortunately for Donna, Richard failed to notice that some of the low cut evening dresses had cleavage bubbling over the top and hems that swished high above ridiculously long legs and pricey shoes. Yes they wore expensive jewellery too, and that’s another thing he failed to notice (ha ha).

These people who seem to love life so much brought plenty of kids along with them, maybe Spring break? We don’t know. English speakers were definitely a minority and it did us a world of good to see first hand that our way is not the only way and it is not necessarily the best way.

We couldn’t help but compare the two cruises – our 20 night Atlantic crossing in December on the three star Costa Victoria and our fourteen night Atlantic crossing in March on the much newer and much larger 4.5 star Mariner of the Seas. We concluded that the quality of the food in the dining room on both ships was equal, as was the dining room service. We sat at a larger table on the Victoria and all of our table mates were real characters – people who made us laugh so hard every night that we never wanted to miss a meal for fear we wouldn’t be able to catch up. Our table mates on the Mariner were all nice and very interesting but much more reserved.

Even though the ship held about 800 more people, lines at the Windjammer Buffet on the Mariner were much shorter and less confused than on the Victoria, mainly because the area was larger and there were many more work stations. But the seating for the buffet was all inside on the Mariner, albeit spread through several massive areas that were surrounded by wall to wall windows. Inside buffet seating on the Victoria was very crowded and the Italians always seemed to be grabbing everything just ahead, but the outside seating area on the back deck, sheltered from the wind, was fabulous and at breakfast every morning, the feeling and sense of place was magical as the sun and the ocean were ‘right there’.

No question about it, the Mariner wins hands down when it comes to entertainment. RCI runs top-class Vegas style shows with big name entertainers who are always good. Each production show with RCI’s own orchestra, dancers and singers (there are at least two of these types of shows on every seven night cruise) cost at least $1 million to set up. Best of the best entertainment though was the Mariner’s Show on Ice – simply spectacular with professional skaters, some of them from Alberta, and enough exotic props and costumes to whirl your mind. The show on ice was the best ice show we have ever seen – anywhere, ever!

Now let’s talk about fitness. No question, the Mariner has state of the art equipment while the Victoria has state of the arc. Low ceilings above the treadmills made the Victoria dangerous for tall people on the run, and their equipment was old. Both ships had lovely walking decks for outdoor exercise, and both ships had spectacular swimming pool decks that were super busy when the weather was right. Costa closed all their pools at a certain time every night though, but on the Mariner several pools and hot tubs remained open 24 hours.

The cabin on the Mariner was larger and had a window, but we paid for it because a promenade view cost more. In fact the cash outlay for both cruises was about the same, but of course in one way the Victoria was better value because it was six nights longer and had a more interesting itinerary with ten ports in five countries. But it was not near as classy. Another thing, in the middle of winter it is much nicer to sail from a cold place to a warm place as we did on the Victoria. Returning to Europe in March on the Mariner meant that everyone was indoors for the last few days because Mediterranean wind and clouds  made the pool deck, other than the hot tubs, off-limits. Even though the Mariner was more expensive it was still money well spent because the ship is an architectural miracle. Just wonderful to walk around and actually see how clever the architects were to design and create such an elegant, classy, massive city that actually has to float - and has a delightful interior promenade, dozens of lounges scattered on various decks, a large library, an internet room (internet cost $35.00 per hour on the Mariner), a skating rink, rock climbing wall, an inline skating track, basketball court, miniature golf course and so on. It also boasted several floors of curved staircases with glitzy lighting that offered photos opportunities galore. There was always at least one live band playing somewhere, and a DJ playing music on the promenade, and a quiet lounge with a guitar player and so on. And those Brazilians? Well they were rocking the boat with feet dancing to the music…

About shopping. The Mariner had a large duty free cosmetic store onboard – I mean big. We must have been busy somewhere else on the ship or just weren’t paying attention because we did not see this, but when the ship finally reached International Waters which is the maritime rule for duty free and casino opening (usually 50 miles from shore) the cosmetic store unlocked its doors. Within just a few hours (we heard two to be exact) the Brazilians had bought the shelves clean. Literally almost nothing left and a testament to how high prices really are in Brazil.

The twenty night sailing on the Victoria in December gave us calm seas all the way across the Atlantic. We could not believe it. The fourteen night sailing back across the Atlantic in March was the same, barely a white cap. Richard’s sea bands never saw the light of day except on the busses in Ecuador and Peru. Would we do another trans Atlantic cruise if we had the opportunity? You bet we would, they are one of the best travel values on earth.

Next report will be from Rome, get your Vespa ready!