Well, I'm back from my seven night Caribbean cruise.  I can without a
doubt say that it was fabulous.  The Mariner of The Seas (Royal Caribbean)
was
awesome.  The service was great!

   Anyway, I wanted to dive in Jamaica and Cozumel, but was only able to
dive in Jamaica.  There were about twelve of us on the ship that dived.

   We met at the dive shop on the ship.  I was definitely nervous but I was
wearing a dive shirt with my home state name on the front. Another diver
came up and started talking to me.  We talked about equipment and stuff.  I
told him I was debating to buy my equipment off the net or from my local
dive shop.  He mentioned that he ran an internet shop called scubatoys.com
or something.  Anyway, we went down to the pier, and the dive boat with the
dive master met us.  We boarded and took off.

   The divers were not really that talkative.  There were a few single guys
like me, then a father and young son, and then a couple of husbands and
wives.

   The first dive was only five or six minutes away from cruise ship.  The
deepest I got was around 50 feet.  It was a little scary but once I got down
that deep it was easy.  I did get to see coral and marine fish for the first
time.  The coral wasn't that great, but still, it was coral.  The dive went
pretty good for me except for the surfacing.  I may have went a little to
fast ascending, but when I saw my computer blinking I slowed down.  Also, my
computer didn't count down from 3 minutes during the safety stop. This was a
rented computer from the ship.

   The second dive was better.  The deepest was around thirty feet, but
there were a lot of canyons to swim thru.  Again, I saw coral and fish,
including some kind of long snake like creature.  The dive master picked the
snake up and let it crawl over it's hand.  I ran my hand under the belly of
the snake for a second or two.

   The highlight of the dive was when I was swimming, then I looked down at
the mouth of a canyon and saw what looked like a shark creature laying on
the bottom.  For a second I thought it was a shark, then thought no way.
Then I thought it might be a stingray, but this creature looked more like a
shark then a stingray.  Then for a second I thought about swimming down
there and investigating, then thought - no, I better not.  The other divers
started noticing the shark too.  A couple of them swam down to get a closer
look. The shark wiggled around for a couple of seconds then swam into the
canyon and disappeared.  The dive master and a few of the other divers swam
down and looked into the canyon mouth.  The divemaster put his hand on his
head, representing a shark fin, and put two fingers up, representing two
sharks.  I thought about swimming down deeper and looking into the canyon,
but the thought of a shark coming up and taking a bight out of my leg or
hip was just too strong, so I stayed away.

   After exploring a little bit more we ended the dive.  I asked about that
shark.  I believe the dive master called it a nurse shark or something.  I
asked if they are vicious and could take a chunk out of me if they wanted.
He just laughed.  He said they could if they were hungry, but mostly they
are sharks that he plays with.

   Anyway, my dives went better than my families excursion.  My brother got
mugged after climbing those Ochos Rios Falls.  After my family climbed the
falls, they were more or less forced to go thru a Jamaican market.  My
brother and his wife got surrounded by twelve big black Jamaicans and was
forced to pay eighty dollars for a ten dollar dress.  I'll say this, my
brother is no wimp, but he was scared.  Also, while climbing the falls, my
family noticed sewer water running into the water, including female feminine
products floating into the water.  Disgusting.

   After my dives I went back to my room to shower, then headed back to do
some shopping.  After visiting some bar called Jimmy Buffets Margaretville,
I was walking down some street and a Jamaican man offered me the service of

a woman.  It's a good thing I didn't except, I would have probably been
surrounded by twelve big Jamaicans and got mugged, than getting pleasure
from some disgusting infected Jamaican woman lol.

   That was it for Jamaica.  We didn't get to go to the Caymans because
they got wiped out from the hurricane.  The next stop was Cozumel.  I really
wished I would have cancelled my dolphin swim and did some scuba diving
instead.  The water looked crystal clear.  The swim with dolphins sucked.
It was
not worth the $136.00  We started at 3pm and our ship was scheduled to leave
at 7pm.  We had to be back on the ship at 6:30pm.  Our little dolphin
program was late to start, then the dolphins wouldn't do what the were
supposed to do.  Plus, the main thing the operators seemed interested in was
taking our pictures while kissing the dolphins.  We were supposed to kiss
the dolphin while looking at the camera, let the dolphin kiss up on the
cheek while looking at the camera, and shake hands with the dolphin while
looking at the camera.  It was like we paid $136.00 each just so we could
have the honor of paying an additional twenty dollars a picture with us and
the dolphins.  Then, they wanted to sell us the video of our experience for
$40.00   I tell ya, If I was God, I would wipe that whole park, along with
all the Mexican workers, and the one American college girl who worked there,
off the
face of the earth.  And put those poor dolphins out of their misery.
Bastards.

   Anyway, to finalize - I enjoyed the two Jamaican dives, even tho the
coral wasn't very colorful.  Also, I would have felt more comfortable in my
own gear or the gear I was trained with at my local scuba shop.  If any of
you are thinking about going on a seven night Royal Caribbean cruise on the
Mariner of The Seas, DO IT!  The ship itself and service was great!  No
excursion can match that ship and service.