Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Meet the Mariner



Mariner of the Seas
Photographed from the air in Dubai


Those of you who follow my blog are aware that recently for six weeks my home was the Mariner of the Seas. In my postings I shared the places where I visited but really told you very little about this temporary residence of mine. In fact a loyal reader and commenter mentioned to me he would like to know and see more of this wonderful ship. So this is for you Keith.
 Captain Flemming

Like a city has a mayor who is in charge of things, our ship had a master and that was our Captain Flemming, actually Flemming B. Nielsen who was born in Denmark and now resides in Arizona when not actually onboard and performing his duties.

Mariner's Officers & Directors

Captain Flemming has been with Royal Caribbean International since 2000 and in 2010 was promoted to Master on the Mariner of the Seas. Like a good mayor he was quite accessible and I spoke with him on several occasions, a very likeable chap.

Serving Table 411
Nehru from Mauritius and Xi Xi from China

The Mariner of the Seas has a total of 1,557 staterooms so that would work out to a passenger population of over 3,000 people. To take care of all these people the Mariner had a crew of 1,200 from 65 countries. I had stateroom attendants from the Philippines and India and working in the dining room waiters and assistants from South Africa, China, Turkey and the island country of Mauritius.

 Johnny Rockets happy and singing staff

There were five dining rooms and in addition five other dining facilities, from fine dining to Johnny Rockets yummy burgers.  A complete fitness center, pools, full size basketball court, miniature golf course, jogging track, rock climbing wall and ice rink to just name a few of the amenities.

 One of the onboard doctors

We had lots of lounges and bars and pubs, the Savoy Theater holds 1,362 and in addition Studio B and its ice rink with seats to accommodate 904. Even a medical facility complete with operating room and during our voyage we had two doctors onboard to take good care of everyone.

Ice show performance
Under the Big Top

The Promenade, which I liked to think of as our Main Street was lined with boutiques and cafes where you could have a drink or a cup of coffee or even an ice cream cone.

Daytime bustle on our Main Street

Familiar Ben & Jerry's on hand always

The Promenade in evening time

In the late afternoon and evenings lovely music was offered up and once on each leg of the cruise a wonderful parade with costumed characters was presented complete with massive amounts of confetti that would later have to be dutifully cleared away each time.

View from Deck 6 down to Deck 5
Guest Services Desk on the lower right

It wasn’t mentioned if there was a jail but there was a morgue. But maybe if you keep people happy, educated, and well fed and provide adequate medical care, jails aren’t needed. Hmm food for thought.

Putting the jogging track to good use





1 comment:

  1. I can't believe there was an onboard ice rink. You kept deep, dark secrets from us, Annie. The ship looks like great fun. Thanks for sharing the view (finally).

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