We're waiting.

Sorry, just absolutely busiest I have ever been.

No gatherings over 10 people they prefer 8 people. We have over 50 in the group. The nice surprise is they upgraded us to a Grand Suite on arrival. Many cancelled so nearly all my preset plans were messed up. We are having small gatherings with 8 people in our suite on every sea day. Also going to have people in the same groups during the Panama Canal Locks all day as this suite has a massive wrap around deck.

A lot of people we have not met before so we are trying to meet them as quickly as we can. Today alone with the lunch, cocktail party, drinks with one couple in Le Meriden and dinner with a different couple we will meet with 15 different people today. Reorganizing our lunch and dinner plans, specialty dining and other details to work with everyone's plans is a challenge. All that said I love being back onboard and the new people we have already met have been really great. I like a challenge and then making it work, thrive on that kind of stress!

Really wearing the masks is not such a big deal. Missing the large functions, Welcome Aboard and Society Night for us are not a big issue for us but maybe for others of course. The new GM Evan has been absolutely wonderful and extremely helpful. Still super happy to be here and socializing with the people we know and then new people as well. So far everyone seems to be happy to just be onboard.

Food has been great!

Really sad to hear about the World Cruise. Must have been a tough decision and SO disappointing for the world cruise guests. We all know that at "some point" this COVID nightmare will end. Just as it seems to look better, a new variant hits to change things for worse again.

Wow! What a great surprise! Post some pictures!

I told our son Sugi you were onboard and he is going to look for you (maybe you will be seated with him one evening in Compass Rose). He says they are pretty short staffed in the restaurant due to so many crew in quarantine, but hopefully more will start to be released from jail soon!

Hi Cindy

YES Sugi took a picture of us last night. Not been seated with Sugi as we have a table we like a lot and the waiter is Meldin so we sit there every night. But I will say that Sugi seemed to be so nice he was so happy to take our picture and told us how much he liked you both, I did not have a pin with me but will be sure to give "your son" a parrot pin.

That's a wonderful picture ! I'm glad all is going well for you.

That was fast! Picture turned out very well.

Missing Cartagena which is not a great loss. I kind of suspected that would happen. They wanted everyone to have insurance, and may have had other requirements as well. Prefer a nice sea day and I can add an additional cocktail party in our suite. All is going well, met some new very nice people.

Relay nice picture of the two of you. We are deriving vicarious pleasure from your enjoyable, albeit busy, activities and so wish we could have come on this cruise.
Roll on July 7th!

Busiest cruise ever and one port has been cancelled. Tomorrow we are in Costa Rica. There are 53 in our group and some super nice people that we have met. Yesterday was the Panama Canal and we invited everyone to our cabin in shifts during the three locks. This suite has a huge wrap around deck. Mimosas flowed and it was really enjoyable. Usually we watch from the front but watching from the back was great. The weather was perfect, no wind and not too hot.

Food has been excellent. Although we did not go to the show everyone was raving about how good it was. I guess some of the old routines but greatly improved.

At times there has been some movement with the seas but nothing major and today it is nice and calm.

So many crew we know. We bought a ton of pins for the crew but quickly running out. Constantly seeing crew we need to give a pin to for their collection, but I am afraid we will run out shortly.

Initially I was a bit worried as the two key positions, GM and FNB as they were filled by people that we did not know and we knew with the limitations on gatherings it was going to be a problem. However, it all worked out fine. The GM, Evan and the FNB, Mihai are outstanding. There have been some challenges and they have so accommodating making things go smoothly. Definitely two key executives we will be thrilled to sail with again.

Not taken any pictures yet the days are just flying by so quickly. Be back again soon.

It sounds like everything is good and everyone having a GREAT time. Thanks for taking us along.

Thanks for the updates! Do you know if GM Michael C is coming back?

Do not know I will ask Evan if he knows

Photos from the Panama Canal:


Our cabin was at the back of the ship. It really gives you a different view.



She has a nice view from the infinity pool.

Ngaire, from a CC report from your cruise, it appears the covid cases keep rising; is your group staying safe and out of quarantine?

We get an update every day from the Captain and usually just one or two cases. The cabins are full of quarantined staff as they do contract tracing and one crew member means more are put in quarantine. A good thing. I think there are four guests and about six crew is what we have heard from the announcements. Could be off on the crew number. But the good news is none of the people with Covid have temperatures and are all doing well, with either light symptoms or no symptoms.

Really enjoying the cruise so far but doing really badly at trivia. Strange questions! Missed two ports Cartagena and Guatemala these were expected to be cancelled. Replaced one of those with a Mexican port today, Puerto Chiapas. Excursions were offered.

SORRY I was rushing to go to Prime 7 and made some errors on that post that I have corrected.

The Mariner only has 1 couple in Covid quarantine - 0.2%
We also had Guatemala cancelled and replaced by Puerto Chiapas. Anyone getting off the ship had to fill out a health questionnaire and take it, vax card and photo ID. They also did random antigen tests on those going for tours, but by 10:30 they shut that down. It's a small, clean and pretty port. The town is 20 miles away but there is a large thatch roof building with several shops inside. The items in the shops are mostly locally made and a decent quality rather than the junk you usually see and it's worth a look for just something to do if you aren't going on tour. Before that building there's a small covered area with some local trinkets and at the end closest to the big building is a spot with "Hot tortillas". You can get a corn tortilla with cheese & pork which is heated on their hot plate to melt the cheese and it costs only $1.00. They were really good and served as lunch for us.

Today we had the update on health onboard. Quite a few crew came out of isolation today and there were two new cases with the crew. No new passengers so I think the passenger count stands at 4 guests. There are 463 guests aboard so that is a very small number. Things are going well, weather has been good and we were in Acapulco today. Now a day at sea and then Cabo. So overall we had one less port than anticipated. All is good.

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Yes we did. On the deck going through the Panama Canal when we had eight people with us who drew the names. I will post those that I remember but the actual drawing cards are in Ken's computer case. Lots of new people I have never met before on this cruise. So the names will not be familiar except for Dave and Joan. Not posting last names for privacy reasons. This is the drawing for the 12 night free cruise on a sailing hosted by Ngaire and Ken or Clay and Brooke.

Dave and Joan
Ken and Linda
Ted and Jean
Dianne and Alex
Andrew and Laurel
Judy and Jim
Werner and Merle
Rick and Carol
Tom and Kathy