Ladies and gentlemen, we are in love! The upgrade fairy waved her wand and we are in suite 1101; Mark just keeps looking around and saying "I like this. I want to keep this". He's busy trying to figure out how to transfer it over to Voyager for PARTY.

Boarding was at noon, there were several of us who thought it would be at 10:00, but that didn't happen. But, when we boarded, our suite was ready and by the time we got there, our luggage was there.

There are a lot of people onboard who know each other from the shakedown cruises. Most are rather elderly, and there are a bunch of wheelchairs. We met a nice couple yesterday at lunch, and they want to get to know us; I have Ngaire's business card in my wallet for when I see them next.

All the staff seems to be as happy as usual, haven't seen anything but smiles. We had dinner in Compass Rose last night and it was wonderful! We were invited to have dinner with the captain tonight, but Mark doesn't have his formal clothes so we had to call in regrets. The nice young man I talked to offered to try to find a tux for Mark, but we didn't even discuss it. Mark developed a dry-air cough on the plane, to the point that the young man in front of us offered a nebulizer, so we aren't going to take that to the captain's table.

Musings for the moment:

Pool Grill is better on Voyager; on Mariner it is awkwardly set up. But they had wonderful grilled fish today, and La Verandah had crab legs. Yum!

The internet was so slow this morning that I couldn't get here, but is much faster right now. You still pay by the minute here, instead of buying a package in advance.

We had a lot of "mail" in our suite. One of them was a complimentary cocktail party for us and up to eight of our closest friends. As of right now, we don't know eight people..LOL!

I took some pictures, but left my cable at home that connects to my computer. I haven't taken enough to bother the guy down here with, and I'll look for a cable in Cabo tomorrow.

It's still kind of chilly, but the weather is clear.

Bored yet? I'm trying to tantalize you even farther for MINT.

Great to hear from you Pam,

Have a wonderful time!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Pam.
It is working on me, and I am sure as the rest of the "MINT" sailors read your reports they will too. :banana:

Thanks for checking in & whetting our appetite for MINT. I think you'll soon find your 8 people for the Cocktail party. If not, just leave the leftovers for the MINT crowd - I don't think we have enough parties planned - we'll need more! :banana:

WOW - The Upgrade Fairey was really nice to you - COngratulations!

Now you'll have to keep us informed of all the DO's & DON'T's on this itinerary!

Enjoy!

Oh, crab legs in La Verandah for lunch!! I loved that the first time I was on the Mariner.

Thanks for the report, Pam.

MarnaLou

Lovely visit from the upgrade fairy, Pam.

Mariner is next on our list after BRAVO. Hope you have a wonderful trip. Bet you'll have your eight people within a day or two. :)

Bored? NEVER - we'll be here waiting anxiously for every installment.

Kathy

Pam, I'm so happy you got upgraded to the Grand Suite...HUGE WOW!! What category did you originally have booked/guaranteed??

Keep up the great posts! We're hanging on to your every word!

Thanks for the update, P! Nice upgrade - wow...

Keep posting as you have time.

Enjoy.

R

Have a wonderful time Pam and how exciting that you got upgraded - Joanna

Pam,

Wow! Congrats on the upgrade. The Mariner is such a great ship. Have a wonderful time. Thanks for taking the time to post.

Betty

Pam,
How lucky for you! An upgrade AND dinner with the Captain. Keep reporting.

Pam, could you ask around and find out who is the current Cruise Director on the Voyager. We board in two weeks and are curious.

Emjoy your cruise!!!!!!!!!

Hi Pam

You are off to a great start! Enjoy every moment!

Have fun Pam and keep us posted.

Pam - that's fantastic that you got upgraded like that! I'm also curious as to what your original category was? Congratulations!

Masaki

I like the upgrade fairy .. a lot! Enjoy your sumptuous accommodations. I'm hoping you find some great people for the cocktail party. Cheers, Anne

We had originally booked the Seven Seas Aft suite that we had for our Alaskan trip. We gained a lot of interior space, but lost that enormous aft balcony. Oh well...we are still happy. The sofa sits about as softly as concrete, so we are thrilled to have chairs to sit and read.

I'll ask about the Voyager cruise director for sure.

Tea yesterday was complete and utter decadence! It was "The Viennese Tea" and I have never seen so much lucious-looking stuff! We pigged out and then totally skipped dinner to pay for it. Do you chocolhoics know which truffle I am talking about when I say it has a liquer filling the shell is dark chocolate, and then rolled in powdered sugar? I snagged a few to have in our suite, just in case. Yum!

They have 3-card poker in the casino now, and we played for a while yesterday. The dealers are incredibly friendly, and one of them was simply hysterical. Add that to a table of happy beginners added to dry-witted Brits, and I had tears rolling down my face. I lost at 3-card, but when I turned around, they had "fixed" my favorite slot machine (it had been turned off, and they told me it was broken) and I almost immediately hit it for $375. Nice.

Olivia, we led that person at CC astray; I had completely forgotten that there is a full bar in this casino. They were serving complimentary champagne (gaming lessons) so there actually was somebody serving drinks for a while.

Todd I got one item for your gift bag, haven't managed to negotiate the second. If it doesn't happen, I'll enclose the spare item and maybe some of you can do the trade-in.

I just ran into the nice couple from Texas in here, so I passed on the business card and told them to come join us when they get a chance.

Cabo this afternoon, I'll be back in touch. Unlike y'all, I have some time to check in.

Sounds like you are off to a great start PAm!
Keep us posted on all the fun you are having.
By the way.. let me be the first to wish you a happy birthday tomorrow...what a great present to be on the ship!!
:app: :app: :app:

Great Pam....I love to play 3 card poker!!

Thanks Pam!

Boy that sure gets one excited huh? :hyper:

Pam,

Have a Happy Birthday!! What a great way to celebrate....on the Mariner!!!!Yeah!

Betty

Hi Pam,

Thanks for the update. Sounds like your cruise is going great. Enjoy your birthday tomorrow. Celebrate in style!!!!!

Beth
<img border="0" alt="[Drinking]" title="" src="graemlins/062802drink_prv.gif" /> More champagne <img border="0" alt="[Drinking]" title="" src="graemlins/062802drink_prv.gif" />

WOW what a nice upgrade!! Clients of mine on the Sept 22 Navigator werw also upgraded to a Grand Suite from a Navigator Suite and we, plus the other three couples (one being ChatKat and husband) were the beneficiaries of the complimentary cocktail party, and it was awesome!! What a nice birthday gift - even though you lost the extra large deck, I'd take that in a heartbeat for sure!! Won't ever happen to us. Somehow, I thought you were on MINT and spending 2 weeks in CALIF before, oh well, hope you have a wonderful time and enjoy that suite.
<img border="0" alt="[Drinking]" title="" src="graemlins/062802drink_prv.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Drinking]" title="" src="graemlins/062802drink_prv.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Drinking]" title="" src="graemlins/062802drink_prv.gif" /> as Beth said, more champagne!!

Yes, the Cocktail party in the Grand Suite was very nice, thank you to Peter and Betty and of coure to JoAnn for inviting them on the cruise to begin with! They bring in a nice bar set up, lots of appetizers and of course the full bartender. When your party is over, you leave and then come back as if you had no party! So it's a pretty perfect night if you ask me!

I couldn't get back here last night, something to do with the mountains around Cabo boucing the signals around.

Marc, the CD on Voyager is due to be Glen Younger.

Well, Cabo was a semi-catastrophe. We didn't drop anchor until 4:30, and they (of course) took the people going on excursions off first. They could only use one tender "hatch" because of the swells, and it was slow going. We had tender tickets #201 & 202, so we just gave up. Which was a good thing because they called those numbers at 5:30 and the last tender back was to be at 7:30. No major loss to us, except that I really wanted to take some pictures so our boys could see what had been don since they were there. Oh well.

One little news item. Filet mignon is back on the menu with the "simple choices".

We had a little bit of excitement last night. Mark sat down on the side of the bed and all the slats fell out. Several people in the room, wringing their hands and saying "oh my", then a maintenance guy came in and fixed it.

We have discovered that we CAN do sea days! (Marcie, I already tried, and he doesn't think he can handle enough sea days for BAIL, sorry) We wander around, we read, we relax. But we are back in our old habits of skipping dinner because we simply don't want to change clothes and it's too much trouble to call room service. Tonight is Signatures, though, and I don't want to cancel that.

Off to read everybody else's news now

Thanks for the birthday wishes!

Pam:

Sounds like you're having a wonderful cruise. Please keep the "seamail" coming - it makes us long to be onboard!

Pam, re: Cabo, heck, if you didn't get there till 4:30 anyway, why not call it another "sea" day! Glad you are enjoying yourself. Maybe one of these days I will be getting one of those Grand suites as an upgrade, but it will have to be from standard, so I sort of doubt it! Do you notice that the ship is moving slower than usual? I am a bit worried b/c we have three vans scheduled when we arrive in Mazatlan for the day. I realize that you have a totally different itinerary, just wondering.

My morning update (tried to manage to get back here yesterday, but between a rousing game of 3-card poker and the 7:00 dinner reservations at Signatures, I just didn't make it),

I don't physically notice the ship moving slower, but if it isn't, why did it take us so long to get to Cabo? We were talking to a gentleman host while we were waiting to get off (we gave up, but he did go onshore for 20 min or so), and ran into him before dinner last night. He said he had talked to people who did the kayaking excursion, and they were literally kayaking in the dark. I haven't found anybody to actually ask about our speed, so I don't know anything definite yet.

BTW, we have 515 people onboard; 82 of those are from shake-down cruises. The same gentleman host said that your cruise is literally packed.

I love this ship. The staff is incredible; I had one guy helping me "shop" for my dessert at lunch yesterday, just because it was fun. The dealers in the casino want to know your name, and they call out to you as they see you. Oh...Marc, the casino manager is transferring to Voyager as of the 12th (the guy there is tired and wants off for a while). Her name is Wendy, she said to tell you to come find her, tell her who you are, and she'll buy you a drink. She has short, dark curly hair. British.

We had dinner at Signatures last night. I guess we are too plebian, but we didn't see that it was that much better than Compass Rose. Mark tried the lamb, and (no offense, Ngaire) we discovered that if we have to eat it at some point, we won't jump overboard to avoid it. Chocolate, vanilla, different strokes and all that stuff. I had the filet and it was wonderful.

We skipped dinner two nights, and tonight is the on-deck barbeque that Ana Luisa described to us. Mark is so excited because there is a mariachi band!

Little humor. As we were getting on, I saw a lady who was really short and blonde; remarked to Mark that she looked just like the wife of a friend of ours (and a really good friend of Mark's partner). Yesterday in the casino, she spoke of Missippi in a DEEP drawl, so I had to ask her where she is from. Memphis. Right down the street from Mark's partner. But they don't know him, just know where he lives because he parks the company advertising Hummer in his driveway.

More later, please let me know if I'm boring you senseless.

Oh, and just in case it's terribly important; we will have NO internet access in Acapulco. The computer expert (a delightful lady who was on Voyager when we were, last year) says that we are on the edge of our satellite right now.

Hi Pam! No, you're certainly not boring us....keep up your great posts! I can't wait till we board! Are you having any luck at 3 card poker?

Pam, it's so fun to read about your trip! You're not boring us at all.

Thanks for the updates.

MarnaLou

Pam,
I am truly enjoying your posts especially since I have had the pleasure of sailing with you both. Glad to hear you are having such a grand time. It is great fun to meet new people on the ship.

Pam,

Sounds like a great cruise. Love the Mariner. The staff is very warm!

BTW, on our PC cruise, we had no internet access for two days - pretty much anywhere south of Cabo.

Boring?? Are you crazy?? This is great. I don't post much but I sure read everything I can. Keep up the good work and I'll look for Wendy in the casino in December on the Voyager.

Great updates Pam!

Glad you're having a good time, Pam. Your posts are fun to read so keep them coming they are NOT boring!

What type of suite is 1101? Is it a penthouse? From what were you upgraded? Any idea why? You so rarely here of upgrades on Radisson, I am always curious as to how it happens.

Andi, 1101 is the Grand Suite, and it's two steps up from the Seven Seas suite we already had. Radisson had published that there would be upgrades if you applied (for how long? A month or so?), and Ngaire tossed all our names into the pot. While we really like it, we also really like the SS Aft that we had for Alaska. Toss-up, really, with the kicker going to the separate shower for Mark in this one.

We docked in Acapulco early, and today we pulled in early to a port that starts with a "Z" and seems to have every letter in the alphabet in it. Yesterday was HOT, HOT, HOT, we did one of the tours on an a/c bus. As of right now, we are going to stay onboard today. Tonight is the Seven Seas Society cocktail party, and we have reservations at Latitudes, so I need to wash my hair (did I mention it was hot yesterday?). If I get everything done before we sail at 3:00, I can play 3-card poker before the party. Marcie, I was playing the other day (and losing) past the time I should have gone to get dressed for dinner, and I got TRIPLE FIVES! For that session, I came out ahead.

Last night was the barbeque on the pool deck with the mariachi band; it was incredible, of course. We sat with a delightful mother-daughter duo who we had encountered before. They are with an enormous Virtuoso group, and told us that 65 people had canceled on this cruise because they suddenly didn't want to travel on election day. We wondered about the penalty that might have been involved, but then that caused us to digress off into trips to Fiji, for some reason.

On cell phones... just before we pulled into Acapulco, where I already knew we would lose the internet satellite, I got email from Jason. There was a problem at work that he and Bernard were stymied over; Mark needed to make the decision, and it needed to be made yesterday. We whipped out the cell phone and headed to the purser's desk for instructions on country codes, and then went to our suite and called home. The call went right through, we dropped the tower a couple of times and had to redial, but it always went through. The company pays for stuff like that, but if anybody needs to know the price of the call, I can go online when I get home and check. Then I can email you.

I guess that's about all I can think of, right now.

Pam, glad you're having a great time! If you have a chance maybe you can ask if we're going to have the Mariachi band on MINT...?? Congratulations on your three 5's:...next, a royal flush for you!