Monarch of the Seas Reviews

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Having cruised with Carnival for our last 3 cruises, we somewhat missed Royal Caribbean. My wife and I decided to go for a quick weekend cruise and leave the kids with her parents. We went with a weekend cruise on the Monarch out of Port canaveral. The stops were Nassau on Sat and CocoCay on Sun. We arrived at the port at 11:30 and were able to promptly park, checkin and were on the boat by 11:45. That was great as the antipated boarding time wasn't untill 1:30. We had the Burgers and Dogs from the lunch buffet. That was the start of our rough time with the food on the Monarch. Burger was dry and flavorless and the hotdog was boiled and not so great either. It didn;'t realy bother us though as who expects much from a boarding day lunch? It sure was nice to be acknoledged and attended to by the friendly buffet dinning staff though! Really missed that when on Carnival. After getting situated in our room, my wife got a pina' colada and I got a Sam Adams and we wandered a bit before the safety Muster. The ship is small and older but kept in great shape. Everything was clean and there were no odd smells. All staff were friendly. After the safety drill, we went back tot he room. We had an outside stateroom with an obsrtucted view on Deck 8. The window was large and the light it let in was quite nice. The stateroom was a decent size for being one of the smaller ships. Stateroom service was good however we only had a towel creature one night and never a little mint or anything. Don't get me wrong, it didn't bother us but worth mentioning. The beds were VERY uncomfortable. It was like there was a flexible peice of plastic on top of springs and under a thin bit of pillow top. They are also a bit short kind like the matresses in most RVs. The pillows and linen were nice but the beds made for some sore backs in the morning. The cruise director is good and quite engageing. He did very well with the 70's blow out party which has kinda become a "thing" on the Monarch and something not to miss. He held his own quite well with the professional dancers while still MCing the event. Now, besides the beds, my biggest complaint with the monarch is the food. Bear in mind though that we ate all our meals in the windjammer buffet. Both my wife and I started feeling a bit "off" after lunch and then after dinner, we had some serious troubles. We found that if we stuck to the Salad we were alright but branch out to about anything else and we were in for trouble. The food was not really all that good either. Most of it was pretty devoid of flavor. Fortunately, I over heard a couple other people talking about the stomach issues on the stairwells so it wasn't just us. It was soo bad that I started dreading our 7 day cruise we have comming up on the freedom until we started just eating the salad. I don't know what it is they put in that food but it should almost be classified as poisoning.

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We planned a cruise for my niece's college graduation. We had 9 in our party. We booked category I for a good price. This was a first cruise for everyone but my DH and me. I really wanted to ensure that everyone had a positive first experience. This was our first cruise with RCCL. Embarkation was fairly quick. We waited in a long line, but it moved quickly and the agents were friendly and helpful. We boarded and went to the Windjammer for lunch. As with many cruises, it was packed -- lots of jockeying for seats. This was a continuing problem as seating for 9 always presented a problem. We went to our rooms and found that one room had not been configured correctly, but our room steward fixed that quickly. Our luggage arrived shortly thereafter and we set sail. Rooms: We knew in advance that the rooms were tiny, so we knew what we were getting into. The view from our room wasn't nearly as obstructed as we expected, but all we really wanted was to be able to see the ocean/sun, so we were not disappointed. We had ongoing problems with the ability to flush our toilet. Maintenance responded quickly, but it became a nuisance around the 4th or 5th time (it was only a 4 night cruise!!) I'm not sure what the issue was, but why not correct the problem rather than simply correct the occurrence? The safe in two of our three staterooms failed to work. Maintenance was slow in responding to these issues and we eventually just pooled all our stuff into one safe. Our room steward was ok, we've sailed with other cruise lines and he was the least friendly of all we've encountered. He wasn't rude, but just simply went about his duties -- didn't seem to be as 'enthused' as the room stewards we've had before. We had pre-paid gratuities and I even gave him additional money upon our first meeting (and thanked him for all that he does for us on our cruise). He did make up our rooms promptly and we never lacked for ice or anything we requested, but then again, with the exception of the toilets and safes, we didn't ask for much. Food: We ate in the MDR and the food was excellent. Our waiter(s) was excellent. He always told us about the meals/choices and stopped by at the end to tell us what to expect the next day and to pass along any helpful suggestions. Our drinks were always there waiting for us and they remembered our favorite bread choices. Our maitre d' stopped by several nights with brain teasers for us to solve. They were fun. We were a bit surprised to find that some coffees were extra. We've not seen this on other cruise lines. The Windjammer was a tad small for the amount of people and we often felt very crowded. There was quite a bit of 'confusion' as people didn't wait in line, but rather grabbed what they wanted regardless of a preexisting line. There was a Sorrento's above the Windjammer and the pizza was good with the exception of the sausage pizza which had hot dog as the sausage (blah). There was self-serve soft ice cream which was yummy and well used. We didn't use the pool or hot tubs, but they seemed to get a good bit of use. I had read that lots of kids used the hot tubs, so we steered clear of them. Once I walked by the hot tubs and the smell of chlorine nearly knocked me over. Good that we passed on them! Public rooms were nice and we participated in many of the ship's activities. I think that above everything, the activities staff did an outstanding job. There was always something going on and everything we went to was fun. We went to most of the evening shows. They were all good, but the juggler was spectacular! There was one dancer, a Chinese fellow, who put the rest of the dancers to shame! He was very good! We were lucky to be able to get to Coco Cay. Tenders were better than I expected and the island was nice. There was live music most of the day and you could hear them for quite a distance. It was nice to be able to have the music to listen to. The BBQ was good and there were plenty of roving drink providers. We walked past the first beach and found plenty of chairs to sit in and lots of shade if you wanted it. We were the only ship there that day, but I can imagine utter chaos if there were two ships or a mega ship. It was nice to have the room to relax without feeling crowded. We enjoyed our day at Nassau, but tried to attend the sail away buffet. That was just awful! It seemed like the entire ship was there and the buffet line for both sides was very long. They ran out of food about halfway, so we were very disappointed (never did get anything to eat). We didn't stay for the sail away party as it was just too crowded for us. Our at sea day was fun as we did ship activities. Several in our group did the rock climbing wall and they enjoyed that. The games, trivia and dancing were all great fun. Debarkation was typical. Trying to clear a ship of everyone in 2 hours is an exercise in patience, but it went fairly quickly. All-in-all we enjoyed our cruise with RCCL. It had more positives than negatives, but we did feel as there were too many nickel and dime items. While I can understand that the cruise line wants to make cruising as affordable for everyone, it just gets old to be told "oh, that's extra". The other thing that struck us was the 'mood' of the staff. They just didn't seem to be a happy as other cruises we've been on. They did their jobs, but they just seemed to be going through the motions.

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This was the first cruise for my 75 yo mother and my 2nd (1st was RC, Majesty). It did not knock our socks off. 1. Soon after boarding, we were assembled in toe to heel formation like sardines for a safety briefing on deck. As we stood waiting in the stifling heat, employees nonchalantly joked in front of us and tried to figure out if there were people missing. Finally we were given a brief demonstration of how to use a life vest, followed by non-safety chatter over the loud speaker by the Captain. Observing how difficult it was for them to assemble people for a briefing makes me wonder what would happen in a real emergency. 2. We selected the 5:45 dinner seating. We would be there before the doors opened and some of the first seated, but somehow, every night we could not get out of there in time to see the show. We would go directly to the theater and it would be full. One evening we stood through the entire show in order to see. During the third and fourth dinner, we started watching and sure enough, others came in after us, were served and left before us. Although we enjoyed our dinner guests, the waiters, and the food, it took too long to be served. 3. We often could not find a seat to watch a show or participate in an activity. We literally would be walking toward seats and the room would fill up in front of us like musical chairs. The day that we were at sea, the few loungers that were empty on deck were either wet from rain, positioned in front of a loud exhaust or speaker or broken. I soon figured out that if a seat was empty, something was wrong with it. Frustrating. 4. Coco Cay was beautiful and I'm glad I took my snorkel gear. I saw some large barracuda, rays, grouper, shark, conch and various schooling fish, which was surprising for the shallow expanse (we stayed to the right, "Barefoot Beach" I think it was). We returned to the ship to eat instead of waiting in a non-moving line for the pulled pork buffet. It was one of those lines where you could not see where it led. The tenders ran to and from the ship often though, about a 10min ride. 5. Nassau Bahamas was a bummer. We took a bus tour in hopes of learning about the history. Again we were made to stand around waiting for late comers. The first half; two forts, the queen's stairs and a wild ride through the poor part of town was semi-interesting. But the second half; a ride through the wealthy part of town with narrative of how much Michael Jackson, Oprah and Whitney Houston spent on their condos was in my opinion bad taste. We were then dumped off at the Atlantis resort casino for thirty minutes. Ridiculous. 6. The food and most employees we encountered on the ship were very good. I do not recall hearing the word "no" the entire trip. Aside from the life vest debacle, communication via loud speaker, television and news print left in the cabin are exceptional. Good job on that RC!

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This was our first cruise, we took our 7 year old and it went fine, she only went to the kids club place one time and didn't want to go back after that, not that it was a bad experience but I think there wasn't many children on this cruise because most kids are still in school I'm guessing. Anyways, ship was pretty good but I have no other to compare it to yet, service was amazing! The food was better than I expected, no complaints there. Coco cay was amazing I loved it so did my child, very relaxing with a big lunch provided. Next day was Nassau we did not get off cause it was cloudy and somewhat dreary out. Next day at sea was finally sunny again! My only complaint would be the rooms.. Very small and somewhat noisy neighbors at night, shower was way to small. Other than that this was a great relaxing vaca that made us hungry for more cruising! Next time we are going on a newer ship and I'm sure we will love it even more:)

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Our boarding time was 1:30pm, but we arrived at Port Canaveral around 12:15pm. We parked at the terminal parking lot, dropped our luggage off with the luggage handlers, and proceeded to the terminal. We first went through security then up the escalator to check-in. Within about 15 - 20 minutes we were on our way onto the ship and our cabin was ready! We went to our cabin first to drop off items we were carrying with us. At first I was kind of worried about the size of the cabin for the 4 of us (kids 9 & 11), but figured we wouldn't be in there much. We were then off to eat lunch and explore the ship! After about an hour we returned to our room to see if any of our luggage had arrived. One of the four pieces were there. Our room attendant, Dion, was also stopped by to introduce himself to us. We changed into bathing suits are were off to the pool deck. We went back shortly for the muster drill and then back on deck to watch the ship sail and enjoy the entertainment (dancing) back up on deck. Ports: Coco Cay was to be our first stop, but because of the weather the captain decided to change the current day to a sea day and return to Coco Cay on our original sea day. It's been quite awhile since we had been to Coco Cay (before kids), and the swimming didn't seem to be as good as I had remembered it. There were a lot of shallow spots, which made it fun for the kids to explore for interesting shells. It was a nice relaxing day, but the seagulls at lunch were unbearable. Nassau was a beautiful day. Since we were in port all day (morning til 11:30pm), we had reserved a room at the Comfort Suites, which also gives access to Atlantis. After getting off the boat at around 9:30am we took a cab to Paradise Island ($16 + tip each way). Comfort Suites had a room ready. We changed into our suits and we were off to Atlantis. We had stayed at Atlantis a couple years prior and couldn't wait to return. We had a blast! Before dinner we headed to Comfort Suites to wash up a bit, change, and headed to the Marina at Atlantis for pizza and walk around. At abound 9pm we took a taxi back to the ship. I was really happy to be on a RCI ship again. Although the Monarch is older, she is still beautiful. The ship was at full capacity, but we still ran into parts of the ship where there weren't a lot of people. The entire crew was wonderful and our room attendant was great. Dion made our stay in our cabin very comfortable for small quarters. We had fun at jewelry making, rock climbing, and bingo on the ship. The food in the dining room and at the buffet was all very good. I did however pay for a filet and lobster one night. It was good, but not good enough to pay the extra. Ice water, lemonade, ice tea, and different juices were available throughout the day on deck 12 above the Windjammer. My husband was not sure he wanted to do a 4 day cruise, but admitted that it was really enjoyable. We would definitely like to cruise on the Monarch again.

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