Built at the Kvaerner Masa-Yards shipyards in Finland, the Voyager-class Mariner of the Seas was delivered to Royal Caribbean International on October 31, 2003.
Two weeks later, after crossing the Atlantic for the first time, the Mariner of the Seas was christened in a special ceremony in the United States.
athlete Jean Driscoll served as godmother of the ship during the ceremony, which took place in Port Canaveral on November 14, 2003.
A few days later, the Mariner of the Seas began an annual program of week-long cruises to the Caribbean.
Departing from Port Canaveral every Sunday, the itineraries sailed through the Western or Eastern Caribbean and visited popular destinations such as Labadee, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Mexico, CocoCay, St. Thomas, St. Maarten and others.
The ship continued sailing similar itineraries until 2009, when it debuted on the West Coast. After a repositioning via South America, the Mariner of the Seas arrived in Los Angeles in February of that year, beginning a series of seven-night cruises to the Mexican Riviera.
The annual program, however, was short-lived, and the Mariner was relocated again in early 2011.
After a brief stint in Brazil, the ship offered its first summer program in the Western Mediterranean and then returned to the Caribbean to operate cruises departing from Galveston.
Joining its sister ship Voyager of the Seas, the Mariner of the Seas arrived in Asia in mid-2013 for a year-round program in the region that included departures from China and Singapore.
After several years of cruising exclusively in the Far East and Southeast Asia, the ship returned to the Western Hemisphere in 2018.
Since returning to its original homeport in Port Canaveral a few years ago, the Mariner has been offering a series of four- and five-night cruises to the Bahamas and the Caribbean.
In 2024, the ship is scheduled to return to Galveston to operate four- to seven-night itineraries in the Western Caribbean.
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