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   Cruise Travel - Reader Reviews

Welcome to Your Favorites, where you have the opportunity to share your travel experiences with fellow Internet Travelers around the world.


Royal Caribbean International

MV Monarch of the Seas

Your Rating:Five Stars
Reviewed by: Kathy R.
# previous cruises: 3
Date of Trip: July 22, 2001
Itinerary: Caribbean - Southern

Overview
My husband and myself, our daughter and a friend, ages 19 and 21, and our son and a friend, ages 21 and 22, went with us on this cruise. We arranged a two day stay through Royal Caribbean at the Caribe Hilton in San Juan, PR, before boarding the ship. We flew into San Juan and RCI did not pick us up at the airport as we had arranged with them. We tried in vain to contact someone locally and finally took a cab to our hotel. The rest of our stay in San Juan and on the ship was wonderful. The Caribe Hilton was on the beach and we had a room with a balcony and a view of the ocean. The Monarch is a wonderful ship and we hated to leave it.

Public Areas
We especially liked the Crown Viking Lounge, high above the top deck. We enjoyed the view you can see in all directions and found this to be a good place to have a pre-dinner drink as the ship left port. The Schooner Bar was also a comfortable place. The theatre has a few seats that offer a bad view, but there are many seats with a good view. The individual seats in the rows do not have enough padding and tend to be a bit hard to sit on. There is a walk around promenade on deck 7 and on deck 11. There are two pools - one was marked for families and one for adults. It looked like people observed these signs when I was there. There were two jacuzzis for age 16 and over. It appeared that people also observed this. The casino was large and often had many gamblers. I do not gamble much and the casino is smokey so I don't like being there, so I do not know if people win very often or not.

Food and Service
The service we received was superb. Our room steward, Arlex, cleaned our room twice a day and we always had fresh towels and sheets. Our waiter, Paul, from India, was very attentive and provided excellent service, and proved to be a lot of fun as the week progressed. On Wednesday, he asked us if there was anything he could do better or different to make us happier - we were happy already with him. Our assistant waiter, Santana, also did a good job. The food is the dining room was good. I don't think any of us had anything to eat that we found substandard. We often ate in the Windjammer for breakfast and lunch, and the buffet was varied and we enjoyed the food there, also. The buffet line was cafeteria style, instead of round islands, and this worked out fine. There were two lines indoors, and two lines for the large, two level outside part of the buffet. Since the servers were behind the counter, I think they noticed and replaced empty trays sooner.

Cabins
Our room was small, indeed. It was actually smaller than on the Grandeur of the Seas, and I didn't think that was possible. We were able, however,to hang up or to put everything away, so there was lots of storage provided. We had an three inside rooms on deck 3. My husband and I are tall people and we found the shower to be adequate in size, but certainly not big. There was no safe, which was really useful to have on other ships. We did not spend a lot of time in our room, and it worked out fine after we got used to it.

Entertainment
We attended four of the shows. The comedian did not seem funny to me, but other people obviously found him to be funny. The RCI singer and dancers did a good job and performed twice. The Miracles (of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles) performed and were enthusiastically received by the audience. They performed many of the hits and it was a good show. The cruise staff were always helpful. One staff member, Maritza from New Zealand, gave me her seat at a show when I sat behind her at one of the side areas. She then sat behind me where I know she could not see as well. I thanked her again after the show and she chatted with me and my family who came up to us, for a while. As the week progressed, I thought the ship was one of the most well run that I have been on.

Activities
In San Juan we visited the Fort El Morro and enjoyed touring this fort very much. There were no tours that day, but we were able to easily explore it on our own. The boys also visited Fort San Cristobel and we all toured Old San Juan. My son, husband and I dove with a dive guide from the beach of the hotel next to ours. The water was warm and fairly clear and we enjoyed the dive.

At St. Thomas, the girls and my son's friend took the ship's sailboat excursion to Buck Island for snorkeling. The sailboat only held five-six people and they met a young married couple with whom they got together on board during the rest of the cruise. They enjoyed the excursion. The other three of us dove again at St. Thomas and found the water to be even clearer. We saw coral and some submerged barges from WWII. Later, my husband and I rode the Paradise Point tramway to the top. This is just across from the cruise ship. We had a pina colada and enjoyed the view. We took some good pictures from this point.

At St. Martin, the girls went to the beach and shopped. They found the street vendors and hair braiders to be somewhat overwhelming. The boys went on the ship's Americas Cup sailing competition excursion and had a super time. My son has a certificate and a great picture they took of the crew on the sailboat while at sea. My husband and I dove again, and the dive operator, Dive Safaris, was very professional and wanted everyone to have a good time. The sea conditions were rough and there were strong currents at the surface and below the surface, so diving was not as good as it might have been. The coral was beautiful, though.

At Antigua, the boys did the ship's kayaking excursion and had a good time. The rest of us went on the Jolly Roger cruise in the morning. We had such fun! The rum punch flowed freely. We docked and my daughter and husband used the rope swing to jump in the water. Others walked the plank. We took the boat to the beach and swam there. Going back, there was a rumba line, limbo and Caribbean dancing. It was a fun, relaxing morning.

At St. Lucia, the girls and my son's friend went on the ship's horseback riding excursion. My daughter's horse was contrary and she said the guide was kind of mean, so she would not recommend this excursion. We dove at Anse Chastenet after an hour's boat ride to this location. We first did a beach dive at a coral preserve off the beach,and it was fantastic. Calm water and beautiful coral and fish. Later we dove from a boat at Devil's Hole. Again the dive was unbelievable. This was the best place to dive.

At Barbados, my son and husband dove again and found the water to be murky, due to rain and storms that week. The boat was crowded and it was a disappointing dive. The rest of us visited a cave and a flower forest, on a ship excursion. The cave was good, and the flower forest was very interesting to walk through. The plants and trees are labeled and we could have spent hours there.

We shopped in all the ports and bought souvenirs - no big purchases.

Who Goes
Our fellow passengers were a blend of all age groups. There were a number of Spanish speaking passengers and my daughter is a Spanish major and enjoyed having a change to speak Spanish with them. We were at a table for six, so we did not meet anyone new at dinner. We enjoyed sharing our day with one another at dinner, so being just us worked out fine.

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